If- 




The Four Great Powers: 



England, France, Russia and America; 



Their Policy, Resources, and Probable Future. 



A Revision with Important Modifications of the work by the same Author, entitled 
"English and French Neutrality," etc. 



By Rev. C. B. BOYNTON, D.D., 

Professor at the U. S. Naval Academy, Chaplain of the House of Representatives. 



C. F. Vent & Co. 

CINCINNATI, CHICAGO, & ST. LOUIS. 
1866. 



\S(A 



Entered, according to an Act of CongresB, in the year 1864, by 

C. B. BOYNTON. 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, in and for the 
Boutheni District of Ohio. 



3 
PREFACE TO REVISED EDITION. 



"When this work was first published, the hostility of 
France and England to the American Republic, was chiefly 
manifested through their deceitful and miscalled neutrality. 
It was, in reality, a device for making war upon us with- 
out hazard or injury to themselves ; a plan for destroying 
our commerce, without exposing their own ; a plot for aid- 
ing our enemies, and destroying our Government, without 
being held accountable for the hostile act. But with the 
close of the war, this special form of foreign hostility passed 
away, and the mere question of the neutrality of these 
powers no longer attracted the attention of the public. 

The name of the book, therefore, no longer expressed 
truly its leading idea. The intention of the writer was to 
show that France and England had allied themselves for 
the purpose of controlling both Europe and America; that 
they first attacked Russia, and then, carrying out their 
original plan, seized the first opportunity of interfering with 
the progress of our Republic. The mock neutrality was 
the form which this foreign conspiracy first assumed, and 
hence the former title of the book : "English and French 
Neutrality; and the Anglo-French Alliance, in their Relation 
to the United States and Russia." 

But none of these designs against us have been aban- 
doned, because of the close of the war. The jealousy of 
these Governments has only been intensified by our success. 
Their fears of our growing power are now greater than be- 
fore, and the moment an occasion presents itself, their hos- 
tility will be more active than ever. 

These pages have not been written with any desire to 
stir up strife. America desires no war, foreign or domestic. 
A contest with England or France should be avoided at 
almost any sacrifice that does not involve a principle or our 



4 PREFACE TO REVISED EDITION. 

national honor. But the author's convictions are clear and 
settled, that a war with one or both these powers cannot be 
avoided, unless our people are so thoroughly awake to dan- 
ger as to be fully prepared. France and England are not 
yet ready to yield to us the control of this Continent. They 
never will do it, unless compelled. If the people are fully 
aware of their danger, and hold themselves in readiness to 
repel attack, especially if they will maintain a navy, which 
shall be the true expression of our national power, then the 
question whether Americans shall rule America may be 
settled without a war. 

But if we are deluded by the idea that France and Eng- 
land have laid aside their hostility and abandoned their de- 
signs, that they are now willing to let us grow on in peace; 
if in consecpience, our military strength is suffered to decline ; 
if our navy is neglected; if we are rendered indifferent to 
what is going on in Mexico; if a strong party can be raised 
up, whose thought is to live only within ourselves with no 
regard to what others are doing, the day will surely come 
when we shall mourn over our delusion. 

The traditional policy of France and England for a hun- 
dred years, their political and commercial necessities, their 
chief wishes and purposes will impel them to interfere with 
the progress of this Republic, if it can be done with any 
reasonable prospect of success. 

We are continually told that Louis Napoleon is about 
to leave Mexico, and we are urged to put everything upon 
the peace footing, and pay no attention to Mexico. We 
are told that the Monroe doctrine is fanatical and impracti- 
cable, and that we should employ ourselves only with home 
affairs. If these opinions become the ruling ones in the 
country, the French Emperor will retain his hold on Mexico, 
and England will help to maintain him there, when the 
occasion comes. 

A reconstructed South might then perhaps so avail her- 
self of foreign aid as to be successful in a second effort for 
separation and a Southern Empire. 

May the people be warned in time. 



AUTHORITIES CONSULTED IN PREPARING THE WORK 



BARON HAXTHAUSEN'S NOTES ON RUSSIA. 

EHRMAN'S TRAVELS IN RUSSIA. 

OLIPHANT'S SHORES OF THE BLACK SEA. 

ALLISON'S HISTORY OF EUROPE. 

RUSSEL'S MODERN EUROPE. 

BANCROFT'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

PRESCOTT'S PHILIP II. 

KINGLAKETS INVASION OF THE CRIMEA. 

STANLEY'S GREEK CHURCH. 

KAY'S SOCIAL CONDITION OF ENGLAND. 

HUNT'S MERCHANT'S MAGAZINE. 

LONDON QUARTERLY. 

FOREIGN QUARTERLY. 

EDINBURGH REVIEW. 

NORTH BRITISH REVIEW. 

SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN. 

NATIONAL ALMANAC, 18G3 AND 1864. 

UNITED STATES SERVICE MAGAZINE. 

REPORTS OF THE NAVY DEPARTMENT. 

REPORTS OF THE ORDINANCE BUREAU. 

OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS OF THE AMERICAN AND ENGLISH GOVERNMENTS 

HON. CHARLES SUMNER'S SPEECH ON OUR FOREIGN RELATIONS. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. pagk 

Free Institutions placed on Trial before the World 11 

CHAPTER II. 
English and French Neutrality 16 

CHAPTER III. 

This Neutrality Illustrated by their Acts 20 

CHAPTER IV. 

The Remoter Causes which have Shaped the Policy of these 

Powers (28 

CHAPTER V. ■ 
The Foreign and Domestic Policy of England 45 

CHAPTER VI. 
England and the Eastern Question , 49 

CHAPTER VII 
Remoter Causes of the Present Policy of France 66 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Condition of England, France, Russia, and America when the 
Anglo-French Alliance was Framed 82 

CHAPTER IX. 

The Crimean War begun by France — In Origin a Religious War— 
An Attempt of the Papacy to regain its Ascendency both East 
and West 101 

(Tii) 



Vlll TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER X. pagb 

Holy Shrines 106 

CHAPTER XI. 
The Religious Aspect of the Eastern War 117 

CHAPTER XII. 
The Papacy in its Connection with the Eastern Question .... 132 

CHAPTER XIII. 

England's Policy Toward Russia in the Crimean War, and in 
regard to the Eastern Question 139 

CHAPTER XIV. 

Had the Allies fully succeeded in the attack, they would have 
held Turkey as a Colonial Dependency, as England holds 
India, and as France intends to deal with Mexico 153 

CHAPTER XV. 
There should be an American Opinion of Russia 166 

CHAPTER XVI. 
The Elements of National Power 170 

CHAPTER XVII. 
The Territory of Russia 176 

CHAPTER XVIII. 
The Relative Position of Russia 185 

CHAPTER XIX. 
Russia Easily Governed from one Center 194 

CHAPTER XX. 
Russia Has Few Vulnerable Points 202 

CHAPTER XXI. 

Russia Controlled by One Race — This Gives her a True 

National Life 214 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. IX 

CHAPTER XXII. pagb 

The National Sentiment of Russia as Affecting National Policy 
and Destiny 230 

CHAPTER XXIII. 
The Educational Institutions of Russia 236 

CHAPTER XXIV. 
The Character of the Russian Intellect 249 

CHAPTER XXV. 
Territorial Progress of Russia 261 

CHAPTER XXVI. 

Russia Aims at a Civilization Distinct from that of Western 

Europe 265 

CHAPTER XXVII. 
The National Idea of Russia 286 

CHAPTER XXVIII. 

Russia, like America, Aims to Grow by the Development of 

Her own Resources 293 

CHAPTER XXIX. 
The Russian Church 308 

CHAPTER XXX. 
The Russian Church may Recover the East 325 

CHAPTER XXXI. 

Structure and Working of the Russian Government 330 

CHAPTER XXXII. 
Russia as She Now Is, and Her Probable Future 348 

CHAPTER XXXIII. 
England, Her Present Condition, Power, and Prospects 353 

CHAPTER XXXIV. 

d 

Will the Three Great Religious Forces already named Act 
Separately or Harmoniously hereafter, or will they come 
into Collision ? 391 



X TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XXXV. page 

The Armies and Navies of England, France, America, and 

Russia 396 

CHAPTER XXXVI. 
The American Navy and Artillery 410 

CHAPTER XXXVII. 
The Armies of England, France, and America 463 

CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

Summary of the Relations of England, France, Russia, and 

America to the World and to Each Other 490 

CHAPTER XXXIX. 

The Monroe Doctrine and the French in Mexico 500 

CHAPTER XL. 
Conclusion 514 



C PI AFTER I 



FREE INSTITUTIONS PLACED ON TRIAL BEFORE THE WORLD. 



The results already attained in the progress of our war, 
and the sure promise of the future, justify us in believing, 
that one purpose of God in permitting this rebellion, was to 
draw the attention of the nations to the free institutions of 
the North, and then, by putting them to the severest possible 
proof, show their excellence unto the people of every land, 
and thus advance the general cause of human freedom. 

It has been proved that a popular Government is not 
necessarily a weak one, and that a free, unwarlike people, 
unused to the restraints of thorough organization and dis- 
cipline, can yet assume almost at once the highest forms of 
national life, can reshape, without confusion, their whole 
industrial energy to meet the demands of sudden war, can 
bring forth and organize, and hold in hand all their resources, 
and with all the skill and science of the age, can wield a 
thoroughly compacted national strength, greater in propor- 
tion to population than has been exhibited by any other 
power of earth. 

The people of the whole civilized world are studying with 
intense interest the events which are passing here, and the 
prominent friends of freedom in Europe declare that we are 
fighting here the great battle of universal humanity. 

Doubtless our complete success in overthrowing slavery 
here, the emancipation of all our laborers, will give a new 
impulse to popular liberty all over the world, and therefore, 



12 FREE INSTITUTIONS PLACED 

as it would seem, God has made the nations spectators of 
this desperate fight. 

This American war closes a political era for Christendom. 
New powers are being prepared as rulers in the coming age, 
and the race will feel the power of a higher life. 

But in order to show fully the quality and the power of 
the life of the free North, it was necessary not only to unveil 
the weakness, the cruelty, the loathsome corruption, the 
ignorance, and barbarism of slavery, but to give to the 
slave-power great advantages in the contest, and cause the 
free States to be taken by surprise, and compel them to begin 
a great war under all possible disadvantage, not only without 
arms, and without friends, but with thousands of foes within 
giving aid and comfort to the enemy without. 

If a Government of the people could pass such a peril 
safely, and win at length a triumph, if it could come forth 
from the trial not only a mighty compacted nation, but with 
all its proper liberties secure, it would be a lesson to which 
kings and people must alike give heed. The North at first 
had nothing to oppose to this great conspiracy, all armed 
and equipped, but its own free, irrepressible life. And thia 
was well ; for th us only could the might of freedom be known. 

Never were a people more completely surprised, and even 
bewildered, than those of the free States were for a time, 
when the conspirators showed that they had fully resolved 
to destroy the Government, and were ready to begin a war. 
The preparations of treason went forward on all sides, and 
men refused to believe that the traitors were in earnest. 
They would not credit the evidences of their own senses. 
They could not be persuaded then, that Americans could be 
guilty of such a shocking crime. 

The incredible nature of the meditated villiany, secured it 
it for a season, and gave time to perfect its plans, and when 
at length the war was actually begun, the North found 
itself not only unarmed but disarmed. Small arms and 
cannon, forts, navy yards, arsenals, the Southern coast and 
cities, the Gulf, the Mississippi from the Ocean to the 
mouth of the Ohio, all these, with few exceptions, were in 



ON TRIAL BEFORE THE AVORLD. 13 

+ lie hands of the traitors; the small "regular armv" was 
surrendered on the frontier, the little "navy"' was in distant 
waters, a single sloop-of-war only on all the Atlantic coast. 
In addition to all this, the Potomac was blockaded by 
batteries, a hostile army was within two days march of 
Washington, and the Capital was cut off from communica- 
tion with the North. Naturally, in this hour of extreme 
peril, the people of the North and their Government, turned 
to the European States, expecting, that at the very least, 
they would sympathize Avith a regularly established Govern- 
ment, in its effort to suppress an uncalled-for rebellion. 
They thought that those avIio had. ever dealt so sternly with 
treason at home, Avould be found on the side of the regular 
authorities here. 

They expected that France, Avho had generously aided us 
to establish here a Republic, would manifest her former 
friendship in this our neAv clanger, and they thought that 
England, who had done and sacrificed so much in the cause 
of human freedom, would come promptly to our aid with 
liA'ing sympathies, Avhen the object of the conspirators was 
declared to be, to build a slave empire on the ruins of a free 
Republic. 

If the free States were amazed at the conspiracy itself, 
they were confounded at the treatment they received from 
the two great allied powers of Western Europe. They 
placed themselves at once virtually on the side of the rebels. 
They declared that the "Great Republican Bubble" had 
burst. They gaA r e the traitors officially, and at once, the 
position and privileges of proper belligerents, they took from 
them the odium, and so far as they could, the guilt of 
rebellion, and relieved their corsair cruisers from the name 
and fate of pirates. We were informed that not one dollar 
of money should be loaned us whereAvith to carry on our 
Avar, and Ave met both at London and Paris only coldness 
and repression, while the rebels Avere cheered and encouraged 
by every act short of recognition, alliance, and Avar against 
the North. Helpless almost, as the free States were, in the 
first days of this conflict, nearly ovenvhelmed at the first 



14 FREE INSTITUTIONS PLACED 

onset by the vast weight of such a conspiracy, not only fully 
organized, but well armed with its stolen weapons, and 
backed by the sympathies of nearly all Europe, Russia only 
excepted, they showed little less than a miraculous energy 
by the manner in which they first stood firm, arid then 
rallied their strength, and increased their resources and 
power, until the conspiracy was pat under their feet, and 
they stood forth a new-born military nation, the equal of 
the foremost. 

"We have now reached a point in our national progress, 
where it is needful to study with jealous care the nature of 
our relations with Western Europe. 

The swift waning of the power of the rebellion will 
probably free us from all fear of intervention, or even 
recognition, and England shows at present a more kindly 
spirit which may possibly ripen into friendship, but France, 
her ally, and with whom she declares herself in perfect 
accord in regard to American affairs, France has planted 
an army just over our border, and proposes to erect a throne 
there also, and to exercise an important influence over 
American affairs, and to dictate, if she can, a policy for our 
continent. 

It becomes us, therefore, quickly to inquire what these 
things mean. We should know why England and France 
are so ready and cordial with their sympathy for the rebels, 
as if by previous agreement, and why we were met with 
coldness and ill-concealed hostility from the beginning, as 
if in accordance with a policy which France and England 
had in concert adopted beforehand. 

We cannot safely trust to uncertainties hereafter. We 
must not agaiu delude ourselves with false hopes. If 
hostility to the American Nation is one feature of the 
Anglo-French Alliance, if their scheme of policy include 
the crippling of America as well as Russia, it is high time 
that this were fully understood by both nations, that in the 
future we may be prepared in season. Russia and America 
may, perhaps, consider it prudent hereafter not to permit 
each other to be separately attacked by the Allied Power* 
of Western Europe. 



ON TRIAL BEFORE THE WORLD. 15 

It becomes all Americans then, to study now afresh the 
origin and aims of the Anglo-French Alliance, as shown 
by their own declarations and corresponding acts, to under- 
stand the policy and resources, the military and naval 
strength of these two Powers, and in connection with these, 
to become familiar with the real character, power and policy 
of Russia, and to measure at the same time our own national 
strength and capabilities, and to comprehend our national 
mission. 



16 ENGLISH AND FRENCH NEUTRALITY. 



CHAPTER II. 



ENGLISH AND FKENCH NEUTRALITY. 



Our war with the rebellion is evidently near its close. The 
conspirators have exhausted their means of resistance, and 
submission or destruction is now their only choice. When 
the end of this conflict is reached, may we then safely dis- 
band our armies, and lay up in harbors our dismantled war 
ships, and securely give ourselves as heretofore, exclusively 
to the pursuits of peace? Shall we continue, as before, 
isolated from the affairs of Europe, and shall we be permitted 
to pursue in quiet our own home policy, an independent 
American career? 

Or has this war been brought upon us merely to prepare 
us for conflicts to come, which will test still more severely 
our courage, skill and power? Has the God of nations 
appointed us to a great mission in behalf of the rights of 
man, which we could not execute until we were delivered 
from that sin and curse which paralyzed our energies, 
prevented us from becoming a national power, corrupted 
our morals, and stripped us of our manhood? Was this 
political and social upheaval ordered for us as a preparatory 
discipline, and through tltis baptism of blood and tears has 
our God consecrated us unto a nobler work ? 

Did God take note of the secret plottings of Western 
Europe, and foreseeing that they would attack us whenever 
an occasion could be found; has He brought upon us the 
stern necessity of casting from us the weakness of slavery, 



ENGLISH AND FRENCH NEUTRALITY. 17 

adding thereby half a million of fighting men to our 
available strength ; has He compelled us to consolidate our 
national power; has lie shown us our resources and capa- 
bilities; has He made us familiar with our strength, and 
forced us to become a great military nation, in order to 
prevent the meditated blow from Europe, or enable us to 
meet it without disaster ? 

If these questions can be answered, it will be by first 
observing the conduct of France and England as neutral 
powers, and then we may find the meaning of this, in the 
nature and purposes of their alliance, and in the necessities 
of their settled national policy. 

In judging the past acts of nations, even of such as call 
themselves Christian, or if we would know what we may 
expect in the future, we must remember that the abstract 
right, the principles of the Gospel, have very little direct 
influence upon national policy. We have not yet arrived 
at that state of perfection, where righteousness and faithful- 
ness are the girdle of the loins of rulers. Kings, Presidents, 
Cabinets, are not expected to do anything contrary to 
apparent interests, merely because it is right, or to refrain 
from any act, merely because it is wrong. 

Each great power of Europe has a national policy of its 
own, which it will carry out so far as it has the power, with 
very little regard for the rights or welfare of others, while 
under that artificial system devised to maintain what they 
oall the "balance of power," any one is liable to be attacked, 
merely because it is more prosperous than its neighbors. 

Nor must Americans overlook the all-important fact, 
that the Allied Powers of Western Europe do seriously 
propose to apply the European political system to the affairs 
of this Continent. Steam navigation has virtually con- 
densed the population of the world ; the spaces between 
nations are scarcely one-fourth of what they once were ; 
the ocean which divides us from Europe is now only a strait; 
and placed as we are, almost side by side with France and 
England, they see and fear the advancing shadow of our 
greatness, and they seek earnestly the means of hindering 



18 ENGLISH AND FRENCH NEUTRALITY. 

our progress and crippling our power. If other means fail, 
if we should come forth from this rebellion with our national 
unity unbroken, and our strength unimpaired, they will 
combine, and attempt by State craft, or by force if they 
dare, to preserve here the " balance of power," which simply 
means to prevent us by all and any means, from becoming 
an American Nation, great enough to be independent of 
them. 

Whoever expects less of hostility, or more of friendship 
than this from any power of Western Europe, will surety 
be deceived. 

It is perhaps barely possible that England may yet seek 
an alliance with America to save herself from France, but 
that is among the secrets of the future. 

Nor must we forget, when we attempt to forecast, the 
future, that the great forces which move the nations of 
Christendom are religious ones. By this is meant, not that 
national counsels are controlled by Christian principles, but 
that the alliances and antagonisms of nations are largely 
shaped by the influence of the ties of race, and the religious 
faith and traditions of the people. , It is quite certain now, 
that the civilized world is fast arraying itself under three 
great political divisions, which correspond to the three great 
religious organizations. Russia heads and wields the Eastern 
Church. France is already the actual leader of the Latin 
race, and the Papal Church, while the Protestant power 
is not as yet so thoroughly organized and united. It has 
not as yet selected its head and champion. Where shall 
we find the great Protestant national leader of the future? 
Will it be Germany or England ? Not unless great changes 
are speedily wrought. Will it be America? Perhaps so, 
if she is found worthy. 

The political tendencies of the three great religious divi- 
sions*of Christendom are perfectly apparent. Protestantism 
embodies itself naturally in free institutions. It seeks 
everywhere, and at all times, to elevate the people, it desires 
to enfranchise universal humanity. Russia and the Greek 



ENGLISH AND FRENCH NEUTRALITY. 19 

Church are moving in the same direction, and give noble 
promise for the future. 

The Papal Church is, as ever, the friend of political and 
ecclesiastical despotism, the hitter enemy of popular rights 
and free institutions; and France, in striving to become 
the Imperial Head of the Latin race and Church, is the 
Leader of a new conspiracy against the peace of nations 
and the liberties of man. 

These facts must all be considered in any attempt to form 
an opinion of the future of Europe and America. They 
show us the true reasons for the course which France and 
England have pursued since the beginning of the rebellion, 
they show why these Powers united for an attack on Russia, 
and that the same motives have shaped their policy towards 
both Russia and America ; and in the light of these facts, 
we may turn to the misnamed neutrality of these Govern- 
ments and read aright its meaning. 



20 THE NEUTRALITY ILLUSTRATED BY ACTS. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE NEUTRALITY ILLUSTRATED BY ACTS. 

In referring to the conduct of France and England, no 
friend of his country or of his race, would dwell upon their 
unfriendly acts for the purpose of creating bitterness of 
feeling, or merely to keep alive the memories of wrong. 

America desires only peace. She asks of Europe that 
she should be left in quietness to work out her own national 
destiny, and to manage her own affairs, as seems best to 
her, without interference from any. But the spirit which 
has been manifested by France and England, the evident 
and earnest desire that the Republic should be destroyed, 
the prompt and cheerful giving of sympathy and aid to our 
rebel enemies, these things should surely warn us to watch 
with jealous care their every movement, to study carefully 
the principles and objects of their policy, that they may 
have no chance hereafter to take us unawares. 

While we rejoice at, and frankly and kindly accept for 
what it is worth, every friendly or forbearing act, which 
seems to indicate some change of temper or intention, we 
are bound by every consideration of prudence and national 
safety, to judge of the present by the past, and to expect 
that these nations hereafter will be guided as they have 
been thus far, not by any friendly feelings towards this 
"Western Power, but by those very principles of policy 
which have controlled them since the beginning of our war. 

Their plans are settled and far-reaching ones. They are 
not to be suddenly or lightly abandoned. The national 



THE NEUTRALITY ILLUSTRATED BY ACTS. 21 

necessities of France and England, as their leaders view 
them, and the policy which they have jointly adopted for 
the control of Christendom, do not permit them to look 
qn-ietly on while Russia and America are making such 
rapid progress. 

Their alliance was framed in view of a real antagonism 
between their interests, and those of Russia and America ; 
they have made the antagonism an actual one by a war 
with Russia, and their treatment of us; and this should be 
borne steadily in mind if we would understand the past, or 
be prepared for the future. The future will be peace, if we 
are strong enough to compel a peace, not otherwise. 

It is important for Americans to remember that the course 
pursued by France and England was the result of previous 
consultation, and positive agreement between them. At 
the outset, they informed our Government that the two 
Powers would be perfectly united in their policy, whatever 
it might be, and in declaring this policy by acts, England 
took the lead. 

Her first open and decided step then, was taken in accord- 
ance with the plan which the French and English rulers 
had decided upon beforehand, and with definite purposes in 
view. The very manner and time chosen, must have been 
fixed by a previous decision. 

By formal Proclamation of the Queen, the Confederate 
rebels, in the very first hours of their insurrection, were 
declared to be rightful ocean belligerents before they had a 
single ship afloat, and when, even if they had ships, there 
was not a port on earth where they could send a prize for 
trial. 

This Proclamation was issued when the British rulers 
knew that Mr. Adams, our newly appointed Minister, was 
at Liverpool, prepared to represent the cause of our Govern- 
ment, but with a haste which revealed clearly the hostile 
intent, the design to prejudge and settle the whole matter 
against us, before we could be heard, and to grant the rebels 
privileges and a national standing, which no effort of ours 
could recall. 



22 THE NEUTRALITY ILLUSTRATED BY ACTS. 

They had resolved, after consulting with France, to 
commit the English and French nation to a policy from 
which they could not retreat. It was essentially an un- 
friendly act. It was known to be so, it was intended to 
give aid and comfort to the traitors, to relieve them from 
the name and crime of treason and piracy, and to win for 
the rebellion the respect and sympathy of the world. In 
moral guilt, as a heartless, selfish violation of national 
friendship, this act was equal to an alliance with the rebels, 
and a declaration of war against the American Government, 
and every subsequent event has shown that it was designed 
to be war in disguise, war without risk to the two Allied 
Powers, but which brought destruction to our commerce, 
and ministered the strength of an alliance to our enemies. 

]STo change in conduct, nor even friendship shown here- 
after, can alter the character of this first unfriendly act. 
It is the one life fountain from which the rebellion has 
received vitality and power, France and England, with 
perfectly agreeing hostility, have employed the Confederates 
to use against us their powder, rifles, cannon, blockade 
runners, and war ships, and these have been employed to 
advance their designs against this Republic as really as if 
they had been covered by the French or English flags, and 
a majority of Englishmen and Frenchmen have rejoiced 
over every Rebel success as if it were a victory of their own, 
and so it really was. It is mockery of the most bitter kind, 
to remind us, as Englishmen have so often done, that they 
have furnished us also with munitions of war, and that as 
neutrals they sell alike to each belligerent. The wrong, 
flagrant and designed, lies in the previous act by which, for 
purposes of their own, and to our deep injury, they pro- 
claimed our enemies to be lawful belligerents. 

They found a company of rebels engaged in an insurrection 
against a lawful Government, in a treasonable conspiracy, 
and because they desired the overthrow of this Republic, 
and they saw the traitors could be used for this foul purpose, 
and because they were determined to give all possible aid 
to these rebel enemies, and could not assist them as traitors 



THE NEUTRALITY ILLUSTRATED BY ACTS. 23 

and rebels, without disgrace, the French and English politi- 
cal magicians touched these rebels with the wand of royal 
proclamation, and lo ! the conspirators were transformed 
into lawful and highly respectable belligerents, on equal 
footing with the lawful Government, and France and Eng- 
land were, of course, neutral powers, and with rights derived 
solely from their own proclamation, they proceeded to 
strengthen the rebels with all manner of moral and material 
support, because they had changed them from traitors to 
belligerents for this very purpose. 

The two Powers are mentioned together as concerned in 
the Proclamation, because from the first they declared that 
they were perfectly united in their American policy. 

Every subsequent act of these two Powers seems to have 
been conceived in the spirit of the Queen's Proclamation ; 
there has not been a single instance, down to the seizing of 
the Rebel Rams, in which the English or French Govern- 
ment deigned to assume even the appearance of friendship. 
A cold, harsh, unfriendly temper, a spirit that sought occa- 
sion against us, watching for a cause of quarrel, was evident 
in all their intercourse. They did not attempt to conceal 
that they sympathized with the rebels, that they desired 
their success, and the overthrow of the Republic ; they 
assumed constantly that the Union was destroyed already, 
and would never be restored, and their every act was in- 
tended, it would seem, to prove the assertion true. 

And unless it was a part of the original plan to interfere 
by force, when the occasion should come, and crush us in 
our hour of peril and weakness, there seems no way to 
explain the conduct of England in the affair of the Trent. 
Unless British statesmen had then determined upon war, as 
a certain means of securing the independence of the South, 
and the destruction of our Government, what meaning can 
we attach to their acts ? They knew perfectly well that the 
seizure of the Trent was not intended by our Government ; 
they kuew that not only did our officer act without orders, 
but that his act was repudiated by our authorities ; they had 
official knowledge of all this, and yet they purposely with- 



24 THE NEUTRALITY ILLUSTRATED BY ACTS. 

held all this from the knowledge of the English people, 
while all means were being earnestly used to inflame the 
popular mind to a degree that would render a war inevitable. 
If the English Government did not then intend war, why 
did it withhold the information which it had of our peace- 
ful disposition, and of our willingness to make honorable 
amends for the seeming wrong. 

It seems impossible to resist the conclusion, that England 
then thought that with a single blow she could establish 
the South and free herself forever from the fear and the 
rivalry of a great American Nation. She knew perfectly 
that America desired nothing more than peace and friend- 
ship with France and England, and unless she intended to 
force us into a war that would be fatal to our nation, why 
did she suppress the truth, why did she surfer the English 
people to be imposed upon, and goaded into fury by false- 
hood, and appeals to national jealousy and pride? 

These things are referred to, not to stimulate ill-feeling or 
a desire for revenge, but because we should be admonished 
by the past what to expect in the future. These acts were 
the result of settled policy on the part of France and England 
both, as will be seen before the subject is dismissed, and that 
policy will not be abandoned, until great changes are wrought 
in the political relations of Europe. These Allied Powers 
may be -actively hostile, or ostensibly friendly toward us, 
as circumstances may demand, but their national policy, in 
regard to both America and Russia, will remain unchanged 
until revolution sweeps over Europe. 

The objects aimed at by the Proclamation are set in the 
clearest light by what has since occurred. It opened at 
once for England a great market for all kinds of munitions 
of war, and every other species of goods which, by swift 
steamers, and from her adjacent ports, could be run through 
the lines of our blockade. These goods would greatly in- 
crease the courage and power of our enemy, and enable the 
conspirators, in all probability, to compel a separation of 
our territory, and this would render impossible a great 
American Nation. 



THE NEUTRALITY ILLUSTRATED BY ACTS. 25 

It enabled England to build a navy for the Rebels, arm 
and man their ships in her own ports, as she did the Alabama 
and others, and these could cripple our commerce in two 
ways, by the destruction of our ships at sea, and by rendering 
them everywhere insecure, so as to transfer even our own 
trade to the British flag. 

These two things have come to pass with immense injury 
to us, they are results easily foreseen, were inevitable even, 
and we have a right, therefore, to believe that this was 
aimed at in the Proclamation. Nor can Americans safely 
forget one important part of the sad evidence of the hostility 
of England in particular, that nearly the whole literary 
power of the Kingdom was employed, as if in concert, to 
injure the cause of the American Government in the eyes 
of the world. 

The most popular letter-writer of England was sent to 
this country with the scarcely veiled intention of presenting 
the North and its cause, in the worst possible light to the 
world, and of painting the conspirators as making a heroic 
effort for independence. 

Not alone the Times, which in spite of all denial, reflects 
in the main more faithfully than any other paper the pre- 
vailing temper of England, but the graver Quarterlies, which 
had hitherto shown some candor in regard to our country, 
joined in the general outcry, and lent their powerful aid in 
misleading and inflaming the public mind, and exciting 
against us and our cause the prejudices of Continental 
Europe. 

These things were not accidental. They were evidently 
parts of a general plan, all bearing upon one purpose, the 
success of the Rebel cause, the destruction of our National 
Union. The statements and arguments of the British Press 
were contrary to all the main facts in the case, and we 
cannot think that educated Englishmen were utterly 
ignorant of our condition and our purposes. "We cannot 
but believe in the clear light of all the facts, that the inten- 
tion was to make a case that should justify the hostile 
attitude which they had assumed. 



26 THE NEUTRALITY ILLUSTRATED BY ACTS. 

No one will believe tliat.it was any surprise, or thought- 
less haste, or sudden irritation, that could induce cool, 
experienced British statesmen to ignore both the principles 
and practice of their Government in regard to conspiracy 
and rebellion, to forget that their island has been crimsoned 
with blood shed to maintain the authority of the regular 
Government, to cast behind them all the testimony and all 
the acts of England against human slavery, and place 
themselves, and the nation which they represented, by the 
side of conspirators, who were not only banded together to 
overthrow a regular Government, but to establish a slave- 
holding despotism. 

It is evident, that motives of no ordinary power must 
have swayed the British Government in adopting such a 
course, and equally strong must have been the influence 
which swept France away from all her precedents, and 
severed the friendly relations which had been the growth 
of more than half a century. 

The motives of both nations must be sought in the nature 
and purposes of their alliance, which will be more fully 
explained hereafter. In carrying out the policy agreed 
upon by the allies, a separate part was assigned to France, 
in the execution of which, England cordially sustained her, 
as she herself declared, for she was careful to assure the 
world, that she approved the movement of France upon 
Mexico, and she supported her words by the presence and 
co-operation of her fleet. Nor does the withdrawal of her 
ships, after the landing was effected, prove by any means 
that the ultimate aims of France were either unknown or 
not approved. Far otherwise. Great Britain has uttered 
no note of remonstrance ; but, on the contrary, France is 
commended for daring to defy us on the subject of the 
Monroe Doctrine, and is given to understand that England 
will be pleased to see what is called a stable Government in 
Mexico, and this is a full endorsement of a most iniquitous 
scheme of invasion and conquest, the most wicked and 
causeless attack of the strong on the weak, which modern 
times have seen. 



THE NEUTRALITY ILLUSTRATED BY ACTS. 27 

The work of France then, was not one of personal ambi- 
tion only, it was a part also of the general scheme of both 
nations to humble and cripple the Great Republic, to check 
the growth of a naval, commercial, and manufacturing 
nation, England the while indifferent to the fact, that the 
success of the plan would overthrow free institutions and 
the Protestant faith on all this Western Continent. 

Spain and England politely escorted the French fleet and 
army to Mexico, and then left France to plant her army on 
shore, to begin a causeless war, and capture the Mexican 
cities, to proclaim a Government in opposition to the wishes 
of the people; to establish, indeed, a vast French camp on 
the flank of the Republic, with wishful eyes turned on 
California, Texas, and the mouth of the Mississippi, de- 
claring her purpose to be, to check the progress of the 
Protestant Republic, and reassert on this Continent the 
supremacy of the Latin race and Roman Church. Such 
are some of the acts of these miscalled neutral powers, and 
prudence demands that we should study carefully their 
meaning. What are the national necessities of these two 
Governments, out of which this policy has sprung? This 
question requires an answer. 



28 THE REMOTER CAUSES WHICH HAVE SHAPED 



CHAPTER IV 



THE REMOTER CAUSES WHICH HAVE SHAPED THE NATIONAL P'/iaCT OP 
FRANCE AND ENGLAND. 



In studying the course of these Allied Powers toward 
America, it is not necessary to assume that it has been 
dictated by any special hatred of the American people, that 
all the old friendship of France has been suddenly turned 
to gall and bitterness, or that England is watching to repay 
the ancient grudge caused by the separation of our colonies. 

There is no such animosity between these nations and 
our own as demands a war. Left to their own impulses, 
the people of these countries would not only live in peace, 
but would gladly cultivate friendly relations. But whoever 
builds a hope of continued peace, merely upon the absence 
of hostile feeling, or upon such popular friendship as may 
exist, will surely be deluded. France and England will be 
governed only by considerations of national policy. Back 
of all friendly feelings, whatever they may be, back of all 
influences of the ties of race, language and religion, which 
might otherwise move England, are the stern necessities of 
her British policy, by which she will be inevitably controlled. 

England's commercial and manufacturing interests, Eng- 
land's power and supremacy among nations, these will be 
first considered ; all else will be coldly thrust aside. The 
English people may be suddenly kindled into a perfect blaze 
of wrath, as in the case of the Trent, but the moment it was 
seen that British policy did not then demand a war, the 
angry fires burned harmlessly out. 



THE NATIONAL POLICY OF FRANCE AND ENGLAND. 29 

On the other hand, it is by no means safe to suppose that, 
because Mr. Beecher's efforts were applauded by so many 
thousands, that therefore all apprehensions may be laid 
aside, and our safe course now is to caress the British Lion 
into quietness and friendship. It would be a short-sighted 
and dangerous policy to place any reliance upon such mani- 
festations as these. 

The necessities of England's position will override all this. 
If the Anglo-French Alliance continues, and these powera 
pursue the policy with which it was formed, they will remain 
in real antagonism to Russia and America, and the struggle 
for the mastery will surely come. Let us do our part in 
the preserving of peace ; yet by all means, prepare for the 
future. 

In studying the policy of the Great Powers of Christen- 
dom, we must remember, that the greatness and power of 
a nation in this age, depend upon the extent of its commerce 
and manufactures. 

War itself has become as much a question of capital and 
machinery, as the working of a cotton mill. But the capital 
made for a great and long war can only be created through 
manufactures and commerce, and therefore, a nation must 
be commercially great in order to become a first-rate mili- 
tary power — and to great wealth must be added skill, in 
the production and use of machinery. 

Battles by land and sea are fought more and more each 
year by machinery. These remarks apply with peculiar 
force to France and England. Their future supremacy 
depends upon their commerce and manufactures, and armies 
and navies are needed by them mainly to extend and secure 
these great interests, which are the sources of their wealth 
and power. Bonaparte found that, although he could over- 
run Europe by mere military power and skill, that he could 
lay no permanent foundation of a great Empire, except upon 
a manufacturing and commercial basis, such as England had 
created; and from that time France has been endeavoring 
to obtain for herself extensive colonies, and to create both 
a great navy and a commercial marine. 



30 THE REMOTER CAUSES WHICH HAVE SHAPED 

If we add to these interests, the influence of the great 
religious organizations of Europe, we shall have the key to 
the whole policy of England and the great powers of the 
Continent. 

European wars just now are not waged for an idea, not- 
withstanding what France has said. England will make 
war, if necessary, to protect the sources of her wealth, and 
to crush a commercial rival; France may do the same to 
add to her colonies or increase her territory, that her com- 
merce and manufactures may grow, and she may use the 
idea of restoring the prestige of the Latin race as best suited 
to her purpose ; but she will prepare no armies or navies 
merely to propagate or defend a principle. 

In order to understand the commercial necessities of the 
Great Powers of Modern Europe, it is necessary to trace 
from afar the movements of the commerce of the world. 

From the earliest ages, to which history reaches even 
with an uncertain light, it is found that wealth, civilization, 
and power are connected with the commerce of eastern 
Asia, India, China, and the Eas.t Indian Archipelago. 
Wherever a depot could be formed for the reception of the 
precious merchandise of the " far East," there was a mag- 
nificent center of dominion. From this source Egypt derived 
much, or most of her enormous wealth. Her upper and lower 
Capitals were each connected with the Red Sea and so with 
India, one by the celebrated ship canal, portions of whose 
bed still are visible, and the other by a graded road from 
Karnac to Kosseir, and their wonderful ruins sufficiently 
attest how Egypt fattened both upon the military and com- 
mercial spoils of India and the eastern Islands. Solomon 
with his Indian seaport at Ezion Geber on the Elanitic 
Gulf, directed a portion of that commerce by sea toward 
Jerusalem, while Palmyra, that beautiful miracle of the 
desert, was created by the trade of the caravans, and the 
enriching effects upon Judea are graphically described in the 
Scriptures, where it is said, that iron became as stones, and 
silver as iron, and gold as silver in the streets of Jerusalem. 

Again, when this trade was centered upon the eastern 



THE NATIONAL POLICY OF FRANCE AND ENGLAND. 31 

shore of the Mediterranean, it produced Tyre, that ocean 
queen, and Sidon, scarcely inferior. It was a vast commer- 
cial idea, and not simply a mad thirst for useless conquest 
that originated the eastern expedition of Alexander. It 
was one of 'the most remarkable conceptions of any man in 
any age, considering the birth, education and position of 
the young Macedonian, dying as he did almost in youth, 
in his thirty-third year. It was the establishment of a 
mighty empire, with an Eastern capital as its center, to be 
enriched by the control of the commerce of India. For 
this purpose he founded Alexandria, and attempted to con- 
trol all the East. 

A French writer bears the following testimony to the 
sagacity of Alexander: "Alexander opened to Europe the 
commerce of the Indian seas, and of Eastern Africa, by a 
road, which if it was at the present day free and perfected as 
it ought to be, would cause the way by the Cape of Good 
Hope to be entirely abandoned." At the same time, Alex- 
ander and his successors did not overlook that more 
northern route upon which Russia has her eye now fixed, 
by the Caspian and Black Seas, and whose advantages were 
so long enjoyed. 

Alexander built cities on the south and east of the Cas- 
pian, while one of his immediate successors attempted to 
unite the Black Sea and the Caspian by means of a canal 
connecting the River Kouban, which empties into the 
Euxine, with the Konraa which flows into the Caspian, 
thus stretching a line-of navigation eastward toward India. 

The idea of Alexander was long and fondly dwelt upon 
by Napoleon, and gave rise to his expedition into Egypt. 
He saw that if the East Indian commerce could be diverted 
from its route by the " stormy Cape," and brought once 
more along its ancient channels, through the Red Sea to 
Egypt, that it would change the seat of the world's wealth 
and dominion, and restore to their former importance the 
eastern shores of the Mediterranean. England has under- 
taken to monopolize this trade, by conquering and holding 
the very countries where it originates, and while she makes 



32 THE REMOTER CAUSES WHICH HAVE SHAPED 

Europe echo with her bitter condemnation of the aggres- 
sions of Russia, she seems to forget that the annals of 
earth do not present a record of a more grasping, selfish, 
and cruel policy than that which has marked her course in 
India. There is no act of ambition or fraud, selfishness or 
oppression, which Great Britain has ever charged upon 
Russia in her acquisitions in Europe and Asia, for the pur- 
pose of opening a highway to China and northern India, 
for which impartial history will not find at least a parallel 
in the manner in which England has sought occasions of 
quarrel and interference in India, and trampled down the 
weak and wrested their possessions away, for the purpose 
of controlling this very commerce of which Russia once 
enjoyed a part, and which she is now seeking to share with 
the rest of Europe. 

The importance of that portion of this trade which once 
poured into Europe by the Black Sea, must not be forgotten 
in an estimate of the present course and aims of Russia. 
An active commerce between India and the West was car- 
ried on along this route, in the remotest antiquity to which 
the light of history has reached. The Phoenicians who are 
said to have possessed a powerful navy two thousand years 
before the Christian era, established colonies and built 
cities both on the Dardanelles and the shores of the Black 
Sea, which flourished upon the trade of the remote East. 
The description of the traffic of Tyre, in the twenty-seventh 
chapter of Ezekiel, shows that horses, mules, slaves, and 
other articles were brought from the Black Sea and the 
Caspian, while from thence also, she hired the soldiers by 
which her walls were defended. The route traversed by 
those merchants who brought her the silks and spices of 
China and India is not mentioned, hut we should infer from 
other facts, that the course of a part of this trade was by 
the Sea of Aral, the Caspian and the Euxine. 

Troy, at or near the entrance of the Dardanelles, was also 
an opulent emporium of eastern commerce, whose power i8 
attested by the ten years siege. This city seems to have 
been attacked because, as Constantinople now does, it com- 



THE NATIONAL POLICY OF FRANCE AND ENGLAND. 33 

manded the gates of the Black Sea, whose commerce waa 
coveted by the rising and aspiring Greeks; and thus, many- 
centuries before the coming of Christ, the theater of the 
Crimean war was the scene of bloody conflicts, whose objects 
were similar to those which have stirred up the strife of 
modern times — the command of the Euxine and the adja- 
cent waters, with the traffic of the East. 

The Colchians, at the foot of the Caucasus, having 
sprung, as is supposed, from an Egyptian colony became 
greatly enriched by this commerce with China, India and 
the intermediate regions, and their wealth and luxury having 
attracted the cupidity of the piratical Greeks, gave rise, 
probably, to the famous Argonautic expedition, in which 
some of the towns of the Colchians on the Black Sea were 
pillaged. This lucrative commerce was soon after monop- 
olized by the rising power and maritime superiority of the 
Greeks, who not only controlled the trade which flowed into 
the Euxine by its numerous rivers, but extended a line of 
towns and citadels, or fortified halting places for the cara- 
vans fa'r eastward toward India. For centuries, the highway 
from Greece to India lay along the Black Sea, the Caspian, 
and the Sea of Aral, the precise route which Russia is intent 
upon re-establishing now. 

About one hundred and fifty years before Christ, the 
countries on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean con- 
tended with Rome for the riches of the Black Sea commerce. 
In this contest Rome was victorious, and the Euxine became 
a closed sea, a Roman lake, and under Pompey the country 
was explored toward India for the purpose of extending the 
commerce by which Asia Minor had been enriched. The 
civil wars which followed, occupied soon after the whole 
attention of Rome, and when Egypt fell into her hands the 
old highway to India by the Red Sea was occupied again, 
and immense Roman fleets, in the time of Augustus, passed 
by the ship canal from the Nile to the Red Sea, on their 
eastern voyages. But this commerce was burthened by the 
emperors with excessive duties, and this tended to force it 
gradually back upon the northern routes toward the Black 
3 



34 THE REMOTER CAUSES WHICH HAVE SHAPED 

Sea once more. Even at this remote period the iron and 
furs of Siberia were among the articles of Roman traffic, 
the mountains of the Ural then yielding their precious 
deposits. 

The importance of the commerce on this northern route 
to India at this time, may he understood from a single fact. 
A short time before the Christian era, Phasiona, on the 
river Phasis, was the great mart of eastern trade, and such 
was its extent that there were one hundred and fifty bridges 
across the stream to accommodate the business carried on 
upon its shores. For some time previous'to the Christian 
era, and for several centuries subsequent, the direct trade 
between China and the West, centering upon the Caspian 
and Euxine, was exceedingly active and important, and few 
probably are aware of the extent of the Chinese overland 
trade which Russia at the present time enjoys, and which 
she is steadily and rapidly increasing. It is a struggle, as 
is perceived, between the ancient highways of traffic, and 
the modern new routes from India, which directing the 
wealth of the Indies upon Western Europe have built up 
London and Paris, as the eastern marts Avere reared of old 
around the Mediterranean and Black Sea, and upon the 
banks of the Nile. 

The removal, by Constantine, of the capital of Rome 
from the Tiber to the Hellespont, formed a new and most 
advantageous center for commercial interchange between 
the East and the West, and Constantinople soon rose to bo 
the foremost city of the world. To her markets crowded 
the merchants from China, India, Arabia, Persia and Europe, 
and her magnificence in consequence was without a rival. 
The advantages of her admirable position between Europe 
and Asia, and between the Mediterranean and the Black 
Sea, were understood and wisely used. She was, in all 
senses, the mistress of the East and West, with the single 
exception of the spiritual power of Rome. Thus for some 
centuries she flourished, and then the Arabian power was 
interposed between her and China and India, and Bagdad 
and other lesser Arab cities rose on the fruits of this inter- 



THE NATIONAL POLICY OF FRANCE AND ENGLAND. 35 

ceptecl commerce, and dazzled for a time all the East with 
their splendor. 

Constantinople suffered in consequence, but was still, 
in the twelfth century, the most splendid city of the world. 
Bagdad alone was worthy to he in any degree compared 
with the Queen of the Hellespont. 

But the hatred of the Roman Church and the ambition 
of Venice and Genoa to possess themselves of an eastern 
commerce, directed an army of the crusaders against Con- 
stantinople which they besieged and plundered, glutting at 
once religious hatred and commercial ambition, and Venice 
obtained the control of the Mediterranean and the Black 
Sea together. She excluded as far as possible Genoa from 
any participation in her advantages, and monopolized and 
fattened upon the business of Constantinople. 

For the possession of this commerce long war was waged 
between Venice and Genoa, but in the fifteenth century the 
conquest of Constantinople by the Turks, and the discovery 
by the Portuguese of the new route to India, seaward, by 
the Cape of Good Hope, changed the whole face of Europe. 
Commerce deserted its ancient seats on and around the 
Mediterranean, and planted the centers of future dominion 
in western Europe, whose cities soon became the depots for 
the eastern trade. 

But previous to this, as has been already stated, one 
great commercial and manufacturing city, with half a mil- 
lion of inhabitants, had been built up in central Russia 
where the merchandise of India and China was brought to 
be distributed through Europe, and thus centuries before 
England had any importance, as a manufacturing or mari- 
time nation, Russia received by the way of the Black Sea, 
an enriching portion of the traffic of India and China. 

But in the meantime, Russia was desolated by a Tartar 
conquest and then by civil strife, ending in a stern, unyield- 
ing despotism, that for a time not only crippled her energies 
but threw her back toward barbarism, and during this period 
the Portuguese, the Spaniards, the Dutch and English, by 



36 THE REMOTER CAUSES WHICH HAVE SHAPED 

their maritime enterprise and skill, had turned into their 
newly-opened ocean route, the trade of India. 

When once more Russia emerged from obscurity, in the 
time of Peter the Great, the world's great centers of power 
were altogether changed. Desolation and silence reigned 
in the once busy marts of the East, the old highways of 
commerce were all deserted, the Mediterranean fleets and 
cities had moldered together; in all the East the Turk ruled 
only to oppress, and exhaust, and ruin, and ocean fleets 
were conveying the riches of -China, India, and the Eastern 
Archipelago, to the rapidly advancing cities of southern and 
western Europe. 

At this point begins the modern struggle for the com- 
merce of the East, which also involves the control of the 
wealth of Western Europe. On this question of the trade 
of Asia, in connection with the antagonisms of religions 
and races, the whole policy of Western Europe hinges, 
and especially has it shaped each movement of France 
and England in regard to Russia and America. 

A brief review of these efforts to secure the trade of India 
and the East, is necessary to explain the meaning of the 
Anglo-French Alliance, the attack upon Russia in the 
Crimean war, the invasion of Mexico, and the hostility 
which France and England have manifested to our own 
Republic. 

The policy and efforts of Russia should be first considered, 
because it will reveal the true reason why she was attacked 
by the Western Powers. 

At the time when Russia was beginning to recover from 
the effect of her Tartar invasion, and the subsequent civil 
wars, the Dutch, the French and the English, were all 
seeking to establish themselves in India, and to obtain 
control of its commerce, and hold it for their own exclusive 
benefit. In this condition of things — the most important 
and enriching trade of all the world in the hands of the 
western Powers, which commerce would soon make them 
the center of power and civilization, as it had already done 
for all who had previously enjoyed its advantages — Russia 



THE NATIONAL POLICY OF FRANCE AND ENGLAND. 37 

perceived clearly that her only hope of becoming a great 
nation lay in her recovering for herself a portion of the 
Eastern commerce, and that her only route to India and 
China was the ancient one — by the Black Sea, the Caspian, 
and the Ural. She saw the necessity of producing those 
commodities which she might exchange for the precious 
stuffs of the East, and therefore created a manufacturing 
system of her own, for the double purpose of stimulating 
her own industry, opening up her own resources, and to 
obtain within herself an independent supply of manufac- 
tured goods, suitable for the Eastern markets. 

Russia, like England, desired to share in the trade of 
northern India and China. For her no path was open across 
the waves, but the old highways leading from the Euxine 
eastward, though mostly deserted, might, perhaps, be opened 
and occupied again. But between her and her goal lay the 
Tartar and the Turk. The question at once arises, was it 
more criminal, more heartless and despotic for Russia to 
remove these from her path, than for England to sweep 
away the natives of Ilindostan. Great Britain was march- 
ing northward, conquering and absorbing India as she went ; 
Russia was marching south-eastward, conquering, but also 
incorporating what she subdued, and making it an integral 
part of her empire. She has been displacing and incorpo- 
rating Turkey, while England has been swallowing India, 
and both for the same purpose, viz : the securing that world- 
enriching commerce of the East. 

Russia has thus advanced to the Crimea, southward to 
the Danube, northward round the Black Sea, and eastward 
still to the Caspian, embracing that also in her acquisitions, 
and now, and thus, she has enclosed Constantinople in a 
semi-circular line of her possessions, from the mouth of 
the Danube, northward and eastward, round to near the 
neighborhood of Ezeroum and Trebizond. In addition to 
this, such is her influence with the court of Persia, that her 
route lies open eastward. In all this, Russia has invaded 
no right of England, has touched neither her territory nor 
her property. She has been endeavoring to open for herself 



38 THE REMOTER CAUSES WHICH HAVE SHAPED 

a land route eastward, while England held the sea and was 
conquering and overrunning India for her own exclusive 
advantage. 

Tried by the rules of Christian morality, the course of 
Russia can not be defended ; but on the other hand, when 
compared with the policy of any one of the great nations 
of Europe, she will scarcely suffer in the comparison. She 
stands before the world as one among those powers, swayed 
by the same ambition, and using against others the same 
means and the same arts which were directed against her- 
self, and which every strong one was using like herself for 
the subjugation of the weak. Not to defend or justify the 
acts of the Russian court, have these remarks been made, 
but to expose the hypocrisy of those who, deeply stained 
as Russia with the sin of ambition, and selfish and wanton 
aggression, wiped their mouths with an affectation of inno- 
cency, and cried out against the Czar as if he were the only 
disturber of the repose of Europe — and where this was done 
merely as a cover for their own ultimate designs. Let Eng- 
land compare her own march from the trading-post of Clive, 
northward over the subjugated provinces of India, with that 
of Russia from Moscow to the Caspian, and she will find 
little cause for self-congratulation. She has established a 
rule there over one hundred and fifty millions of a down- 
trodden people, the rule of strong and exacting masters 
over comparatively weak and defenseless races, that will be 
crushed out and displaced, not elevated to the position of 
free and civilized communities, who will neither share the 
glory nor the prosperity of the nation by which they have 
been subdued. India is a vast plantation owned by England, 
and worked exclusively for the benefit of the dominant race. 

But to return to a consideration of the commerce of the 
East. Russia aims at the trade of the East Indian Archi- 
pelago, China, Northern India, Persia, and the countries 
around the Hellespont, the Euxine and the Caspian. To 
place herself in communication with the wealth of the East 
Indian Islands she has stretched her dominions to the Pacific, 
and along its shore, till she now embraces the mouth and 



THE NATIONAL POLICY OF FRANCE AND ENGLAND. 39 

the valley of the Amoor, including a large and fertile prov- 
ince obtained from China. This river opens up a commercial 
highway, as has been stated, far westward through northern 
China into Siberia, toward the Ural, whence a railway is 
practicable into Europe, toward Moscow and Odessa. Rivers 
and canals already connect all parts of the Empire with the 
Euxine and the Caspian, and then a great northern route 
stretches out before her, by the way of the Sea of Aral, 
toward Herat and Northern India. Already this trade has 
been nourished into great importance. This will appear by 
the following statement copied from Merchants' Magazine, 
in an article whose authority can scarcely be questioned : 

" The Russian caravans carry the furs of foxes, beavers, 
castors, of Kamksekatka and of America, coral, clocks, 
linens, woolen cloths, wool, leather, looking-glasses, glass, 
etc., and give them to the Chinese in exchange for silk, 
precious stones, tea, cotton, rice, porcelain, rhubarb, gauze- 
crape, mourning-crape, musk, anniseed, silks with threads 
of gold, velvets, tobacco, sugar candy, preserved ginger, 
pipes, combs, dolls made of silk and of porcelain. 

"In the time of Catherine, this business was valued at 
20,000,000 of francs, equally divided between the Russians 
and Chinese. The business has constantly progressed ever 
since, and in 1850 the Russians exported to China 28,000,000 
francs worth of merchandise. The caravans of Kiatka have 
not alone the privilege of the commerce between China 
and Russia; the independent Tartars carry to Oremberg 
and Troizkai the provisions which they purchase in India 
and China. A part of this merchandise, and of that brought 
by other caravans from Thibet, from India, from Khiva, from 
Bokhara, from all central Asia, from Persia, from Georgia 
from Armenia, arrive at the great fair at JSTijnei-Novgorod, 
at the confluence of the Volga and the Olka, where, it is 
said, 600,000 merchants assemble. To give an idea of the 
importance of the commerce of Russia with the different 
countries of Asia, it is sufficient to say that she imports by 
the Caspian 8,000,000 francs' worth of merchandise, to 



40 THE REMOTER CAUSES WHICH HAVE SHAPED 

which must be added about 10,000,000, to represent the 
productions which she receives by land from the Turkish 
and Persian provinces. She buys 116,000,000 francs' worth 
of Chinese productions, and brings from Bokhara and Tar- 
tary 76,000,000. Her exports by land to Asia amount to 
170,000,000 of francs. 

"It would be easy for Russia to bring ail this commerce 
to the Black Sea, without doing any prejudice to her pro- 
vinces in the north of Europe. She is doing everything for 
the accomplishment of this result, and nature has traced 
the route by which this immense commerce would easily 
flow into the Euxine. The most considerable rivers in 
Russia — the Dnieper, the Dniester, and the Don — empty 
into this sea ; and with them, all the agricultural and 
manufacturing riches of Russia would descend into the 
Euxine, attracted there by the merchant vessels of the 
maritime nations of southern Europe, of western Asia, and 
of the north of Africa. In order to prevent any obstacle to 
this powerful current of commerce, which would bring to 
the south the productions of the north-east of Europe, the 
rivers just mentioned were connected with the Baltic and 
the White Sea by means of a vast system of canalization, 
conceived and commenced by the genius of Peter the Great. 

" The Danube alone could bring into the Russian ports 
of the Black Sea the commerce of a large part of western 
Europe; for the Danube, united to the Rhine by the canal 
Louis, which puts it in direct communication with France, 
Belgium, and Holland, offers to commerce the most direct 
line of communication between Europe and Asia. The 
Caspian is connected with the Northern Sea by means of 
an immensely important canal, which joins the Volga to 
the Meta, a tributary of the Volchov, which falls into the 
Lake of Ladoga. This lake communicates with the Baltic 
(Gulf of Finland) ; the Volga itself is connected with the 
Lake of Ladoga by the canal of Tchkvin; and the canals 
of Koubensk, and of the north, unite the Caspian with the 
White Sea. 

"However great the importance of this net- work of 



THE NATIONAL POLICY OP FRANCE AND ENGLAND. 41 

canals in Russia in Europe, still they do not suffice to carry 
out but a part of the commercial projects of Peter the 
Great. It was still necessary to bring eastern Asia and 
the Black Sea into communication with the Caspian Sea. 
Peter, as we have already seen, had traced on a map the 
plan of a canal between these two seas ; this was no more 
than the renewal of the project of Seleucus, of which we 
have spoken in its place. At a later period he decided to 
join these seas by means of a canal between the Clavlia, a 
tributary of the Don, and the Kamychenka, a tributary of 
the Volga — an enterprise which had been attempted by the 
Venitians and the Tartars of the Crimea. 

" There were great difficulties to overcome before com- 
pleting this canal, for the Don is higher than the Volga. 
But Peter undertook to overcome them, and employed an 
English engineer named Perry, who, after three years labor, 
was obliged to abandon it to complete fortifications of 
immediate necessity. Catherine II. caused the enterprise 
to be carried on for two years ; but the ravine of Peter the 
Great, as it is called, is still unfinished. 

" Now, it is probable a railroad will take the place of a 
canal. The Black Sea has already become almost a Russian 
lake. The Caspian belongs to the Czar, for Persia has lost 
the right to keep an armed force there, and her communi- 
cation with the Black Sea becomes at once of the greatest 
importance to Russia. Besides, the Caspian receives the 
Volga, that immense stream which traverses all southern 
and eastern Russia, which, by the aid of the Kama — one 
of its tributaries — is connected with the Ural Mountains, 
so rich in mines of gold, platina, iron and copper ; also the 
rich productions of all eastern and central Asia, of Persia, 
of Armenia, and the neighboring countries, flow into the 
Caspian by different routes. Now, to carry out the com- 
mercial views of Russia, it remains to put the Caspian in 
direct communication with all central Asia, as far as 
India and China. Nature had primitively established this 
immense line of communication, by making but one great 
internal sea of the Aral and Caspian. Ever since the epoch 



42 THE REMOTER CAUSES WHICH HAVE SHAPED 

of the separation of these two seas by the vast steppes of 
Manquischlaks, a communication still existed, if it is true 
that as late as the tenth or eleventh century of our era the 
ancient Oxus (Amou Daria) emptied into the Caspian, 
placing her in a direct communication with the south-west 
frontiers of China and the north of India ; but in the present 
day this river empties into the Aral, but still could, by its 
numerous tributaries and by caravans, easily bring the pro- 
ductions of Chinese Tartary, of Thibet, of Cashmere, and 
of India, by Khiva, to the Aral, which receives the Scria 
Daria (Jaxade), which is the route of an active commerce, 
and the best communication with the table-lands of China, 
Turkistan, southern Russia, and the Black Sea. 

" From the preceding, it is easy to understand the efforts 
made by Russia to get possession of Khiva, which is at the 
head of the Amou Scria (Oxus). Once mistress of this place, 
Bokhara would soon see her at her gates, and Khokanee, 
which is near, would become her prey. Then she would 
at pleasure direct the caravans of China, of Thibet, and of 
India. After that, it would be easy to create a communi- 
cation between the Caspian and the Aral, and the Black Sea 
would be connected with the extreme East. Independently 
of the facilities of communication by water, just mentioned, 
a prodigious quantity of merchandise would come by cara- 
vans from the East to the Black Sea. 

"In two hundred days, the caravans can make the jour- 
ney from Chin-Si, on the western frontiers of China, to the 
eastern shores of the Caspian. From there the numerous 
steamers can easily transport the merchandise to Astrakan. 
A large part of the commerce of western Persia, of Arme- 
nia, of Mesopotamia, and other countries bordering on the 
Tigris and the Euphrates, on the north-east of Asia Minor, 
goes to the Black Sea, and Trebizond is its principal depot. 
Now, Trebizond is within a few leagues of the Muscovite 
frontiers. Russia is preparing to extend herself on the 
South. She already covets Kurdistan and Armenia, and 
would like the possession of the Tigris and the Euphrates, 
bo important to her commercial interests; and in 1829, 



THE NATIONAL POLICY OF FRANCE AND ENGLAND. 43 

during the war against the Turks, General Paskiewitch, 
who was at Ezeroum, had the intention for a moment of 
taking possession of Bagdad, rendered an important city 
by its commerce with Egypt, Arabia, India, Turkistan, and 
Persia, and depot of the merchandise from the East which 
is directed to Syria, Asia Minor, Trebizond, and Constan- 
tinople. / 

" Russia, in order to firmly establish her commercial 
power, tries, like an immense polypus, to stretch her thou- 
sand arms over the Eastern world. At the same time, she 
attempts to naturalize in her provinces all the industrial 
arts of the West, and has made a real progress, which is 
easy to be proved, and of which Europe makes too little 
account. The Czars, in their haughty pride, do not wish 
to be obliged to have to ask anything from the rest of the 
world, and profiting by the different climates united in their 
vast empire, endeavor to cultivate the productions of every 
clime. They have no colonies for the production of sugar; 
but the provinces of Oral and of Sacalof are covered with 
immense plantations of beets, from which sugar is manu- 
factured. Their southern provinces furnish wheat for part 
of the west; in 1850 the exportation was enormous. The 
northern provinces produce prodigious" quantities of flax and 
of hemp. Cotton is cultivated in Georgia, and the country 
taken from Persia ; since 1845 indigo has been introduced 
into the Caucasian provinces ; merino sheep, by hundreds 
of thousands, are all around Moscow, towards the Baltic, 
and on the shores of the Black Sea — they prosper every 
where, and produce abundantly. Silk is produced in the 
southern provinces, and in 1833 the Empe"er Nicholas 
caused 4,000,000 of shoots of the mulberry tree to be planted. 
The gold mines of Asiatic Russia are very productive, and 
furnish annually 100,000,000 of francs to the treasury. 
Finally, the Czars wished to have their wine independently 
of France, and the Crimea is covered with vineyards." 

From what has now been presented, the grand commer- 
cial idea of Russia will clearly appear. It is certainly 



44 THE NATIONAL POLICY OF FRANCE AND ENGLAND. 

second to no conception of modern times, and it ill becomes 
other nations to accuse her of ignorance and barbarism, 
when she is working out before the world so vast a problem 
as the restoration of the commerce of the East, in part at 
least, to its old highways, that commerce which filled once 
all the space between the Mediterranean and the Indies 
with populous cities, and whose ebbing tide left these seats 
of old dominion to waste and desolation. 

There is one feature of the operations of Russia which 
seems to indicate a design to render her commercial scheme 
independent of the possession of Constantinople. While 
the Allies were arrested at Sebastopol, she was exceedingly 
active in Asia, in the neighborhood of Trebizond and the 
south-eastern extremity of the Black Sea. She evidently 
intends to possess herself of permanent stations there. 
"With a seaport at that point, and communication with the 
Euphrates and the Persian Gulf, she would possess a com- 
mercial line to India and the East, which would be entirely 
independent of Constantinople and the Mediterranean. 

These statements present a view of the policy and com- 
mercial views of Russia up to the time of the Crimean 
war. As will be more fully explained hereafter, she was 
endeavoring, in a perfectly legitimate manner, to develop 
her own great resources by cherishing her manufactures, 
and to secure for herself an independent channel for her 
trade with India. If now we turn to the policy and acts of 
France and England, we shall understand why Russia was 
attacked, and why America is menaced. 

Russia was attacked because France and England feared 
her growing power, and for no other reason whatever. 
They feared that she would soon become a great commercial 
power by the overthrow of Turkey, and a manufacturing 
nation by the development of her immense resources, and 
therefore they wanted to cripple or destroy her — and the 
very same reasons have caused their hostility to us. 

Let not Americans forget that these reasons remain in 
full force, whatever the present aspect of these powers 
may be. 



ENGLAND S DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN POLICY. 45 



CHAPTER V. 



ENGLAND'S DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN POLICY. 

"I would not suffer even a nail for a horse- shoe to be 
manufactured in America." — (Declaration of the elder Pitt). 

" Nicholson, the royal governor of Virginia, calmly advised 
that parliament should forbid the Virginians to make their 
own clothing." Spotswood repeats the complaint : " The 
people, more of necessity than inclination, attempt to clothe 
themselves with their own manufactures ; adding, it is 
certainly necessary to divert their application to some 
commodity less prejudical to the trade of Great Britain. — 
(Bancroft, vol. iii., 107). 

In the same connection, Bancroft also cites the following 
act of Parliament : " After the first day of December, 1699, 
" no wool or manufacture made, or mixed with wool, being 
"the produce or manufacture of any of the English planta- 
" tions in America, shall be loaden in any ship or vessel, 
" upon any pretense whatsoever — nor loaden upon any 
"horse, cart, or other carriage, to be carried out of the 
" English plantations to any other of the said plantations, 
"or to any other place whatsoever." Thus, says Bancroft, 
the fabrics of Connecticut might not seek a market in 
Massachusetts, or be carried to Albany to traffic with the 
Indians. An English mariner might not purchase in Boston 
woolens of a greater value than fifty shillings, lest a larger 
amount should injure the manufactures of England at home. 

Another Colonial measure is thus stated by Bancroft, vol. 
iii., 103-4 : " To make most of the money centre of England, 



46 England's domestic and foreign policy. 

" the Lords of trade proposed a regulation of the colonial 
" currency, by reducing all the coin of America to one 
" standard. The Proclamation of Queen Anne was not 
" designed to preserve among the colonies the English basis ; 
" on the contrary, it confirmed to all the colonies a depre- 
" ciated currency, but to make the depreciation uniform and 
"safe against change; and England therefore," he says, 
"monopolized all the gold and silver." 

To these statements may be added what the English his- 
torian Russel (vol. ii., 181,) says in regard to the character 
and design of the " famous navigation act, which prohibited 
" foreign ships, unless under some particular exceptions, 
" from entering the harbors of the English (American) colo- 
" nies, and obliged their principal produce to be exported 
" directly to countries under the dominion of England. 

" Before this regulation, which was with difficulty sub- 
"mitted to by some of the colonies, and always evaded by 
"the fanatical and factious inhabitants of New England, the 
" colonists used to send their produce whithersoever they 
" thought it would be disposed of to most advantage, and 
"indiscriminately admitted into their harbors ships of all 
" nations. * * * The navigation act remedied this evil ; 
"and the English parliament, though aware of the incon- 
" venience of such a regulation to the colonies, were not 
" alarmed at the probable results." 

To all these settlements, England thenceforth exported 
without a rival her various manufactures. 

These quotations set forth with perfect accuracy the spirit 
and policy which have governed England for more than 
two hundred years. Her scheme is very simple in its ele- 
ments, and its main points are perfectly obvious, They 
are first to manufacture, as far as possible, for the rest of 
the world; second, to confine the commerce of the world, 
as much as in her lies, to her own ships ; and third, as the 
consequence of these, to draw to herself the gold and silver 
of the nations, and make herself the Banker and Capitalist 
for all nations. 

To accomplish these ends, Great Britain has steadily 



England's domestic and foreign policy. 47 

employed all her sagacity and all her power, and in the 
pursuit of her purpose, she has been just as selfish and 
unscrupulous in all her course as she was in her treatment 
of her American colonies. 

Were she able to prevent it, she, in the spirit of Pitt, 
would not permit any nation of earth to manufacture a 
horse-shoe nail for themselves, or own a single ship. 

She has hesitated at nothing that promised her success. 
If, in order to increase her manufactures, her commerce, 
and her wealth, it was necessary to oppress her colonies, 
and cripple their industry, it was done. If she needed a 
country like India, she seized it, annihilated its domestic 
manufactures, and reduced its millions to mere serfs, labor- 
ing for her mills, and to employ her ships. If China would 
not buy her opium, she battered down her towns, and 
slaughtered her inhabitants, and then forced China to pay 
the expenses of the robbery. 

When Russia is making such rapid advances in manufac- 
tures and commerce, as to threaten her with rivalry, she 
smothers the enmity of centuries, and unites with Prance 
to attack and cripple her, and then on the first opportunity, 
joins with France and the Rebels in an attempt to destroy 
this manufacturing and commercial Republic, and she has 
done this in the same spirit and with th^ same end in view, 
as when she crushed, so far as she could, the manufactures 
and the commerce of the infant colonies. The spirit that 
protested against the Virginians manufacturing their own 
clothes, is the same which now cries out against a tariff 
which cherishes our home industry, and declares the Morrill 
tariff a proper cause of war, and the policy which forbade 
the colonists to ship on any but Pnglish bottoms, is the 
same that now furnishes privateers to the Rebels, which 
by rendering our commerce unsafe, transfers to British ships 
our own proper carrying trade. 

England desires to see the nation divided, both in order 
that a rival may be crushed, and because she hopes that 
thus the South would be virtually an agricultural colony, 
to supply her looms with mateiial, and furnish a market for 



48 England's domestic and foreign policy. 

her fabrics, while France covets Mexico, Texas, and Cali- 
fornia, for similar reasons, but at the same time religious 
ambition is largely shaping her policy. "We may judge 
whether they will be moved from these purposes by pleasant 
words. 

Having thus given the key-note to the policy, both of 
England and France, it is necessary to look at their course 
somewhat in detail, in order to understand fully their present 
attitude and aims. 



ENGLAND AND THE EASTERN QUESTION. 49 



CHAPTER VI. 



ENGLAND AND THE EASTERN QUESTION. 

The present state of Europe, with its alliances and antago- 
nisms, the union of France and England, and their hostility 
to Russia and America, is the result of commercial causes 
which have been in operation for at least two hundred years, 
while the religious influences that are shaping the present 
and the future, reach much farther into the past. 

And even should France and England separate, the com- 
binations of the future will be governed by the same general 
causes which have produced the present, unless one of those 
great revolutions should occur, which close up eras in the 
world's history, and form a new starting point for the 
nations. 

In the sixteenth century, for the first time, the commer- 
cial interest in European politics became prominent. In 
the language of Bancroft, " it formed alliances, regulated 
" wars, dictated treaties, and established barriers against 
" conquests. Now, for the first time, great maritime powers 
" struggled for dominion on the high seas. The world 
" entered on a new epoch." 

When the discovery of the ocean route to India by the 
"stormy Cape" had turned the Eastern trade away from its 
ancient marts in western Asia, and even from the Italian 
cities, and was directing it upon western Europe, Portugal, 
first of all, by the daring, enterprise, and skill of her mari- 
ners, became the center of this enriching traffic ; and Lisbon 
for a time was the great commercial mart of Europe. She 



50 ENGLAND AND THE EASTERN QUESTION. 

was soon, however, compelled to share this commerce with 
the Dutch, who wrested from her an important portion of 
her East Indian possessions. They rapidly amassed immense 
wealth by this enriching trade, and Amsterdam and Ant- 
werp became the "great heart of commercial circulation." 

The commercial prosperity of the Dutch, however, received 
a severe check by that navigation act by which England 
compelled her colonies to buy from, and sell to, her alone, 
an act by which she not only injured her Dutch rival, but 
hoped to prevent the rise of any commercial or manufac- 
turing power in America. The power of Great Britain 
increased exactly in proportion as she extended her com- 
merce and manufactures, compelling her colonies, and all 
else whom she could control, to sell to her their raw material, 
to be transported in her ships, manufactured in her mills, 
and then resold it to those by whom it was produced, and 
who were forbidden to make from it even their own clothing. 

The decline first of the commerce of Portugal, and then 
of the maritime power of the Dutch, and at length the fall 
of the Spanish Monarchy, left England with only one 
formidable rival. France alone had power to confront and 
threaten her, and thenceforth for about a hundred years, 
these two great powers were contending directly for the 
control of the commerce and manufactures, and consequently 
for the wealth and the power of the world. It will be inter- 
esting for Americans to study the reasons which suddenly 
ended their conflict, and united them, first against Russia, 
and now against America. 

About the middle of the seventeenth century, we find 
Great Britain actively engaged in carrying out her colonial 
and commercial policy, alike in the East and the West. 
From her American possessions, both insular and conti- 
nental, she had excluded the rest of the world, and with 
little regard for the rights or interests of the colonists, sub- 
jected them all to a commercial system, which repressed 
their industry, and drained them of their wealth, in order 
that her own merchants and manufacturers might be 
enriched, and that England might be made the money 



ENGLAND AND THE EASTERN QUESTION. 51 

centre of the world. Had she proposed to accomplish this 
by a fair development of her own resources, there would 
have been no cause for complaint. Had she become more 
wealthy and more powerful than others by her superior 
skill, energy or industry, she would have been worthy only 
of admiration and praise. But when she said to the mil- 
lions of her colonial subjects, you shall make no use of the 
resources of your country, except such as our home interests 
demand ; you shall manufacture nothing, but buy all from 
the English mills and shops; and you shall build you no 
ships, but your trade shall all be in our hands at home ; 
she was simply a selfish oppressor, enslaving to the extent 
of her power, the industry of the world. 

The colonial system of England, like that of all "Western 
Europe at the time, was only an application on a large scale 
of the principles of monarchical and aristocratic govern- 
ments, to such communities abroad as she could control. 
As the noble and wealthy landholders considered it quite 
right to use the laborers merely to increase their own wealth 
and luxuries, so each home government, esteeming itself to 
be the lord proprietor of all colonial territory, scrupled not 
to use the land, its resources, and its inhabitants, in any 
manner by which it might be most speedily enriched. 

It was the serf or slaveholding principle applied to nations 
so far as was possible, and England grew haughty with the 
increase of her power, nursed her ambition and her pride 
until she thought to become the great slaveholder of the 
nations; she aimed to hold in subjection the territory, the 
resources, the labor of the world. 

When her colonists were spirited and intelligent, like 
those of America, she hedged them round, and fettered 
them with oppressive enactments ; and where they were 
weak and ignorant, she reduced them, as in India, very 
nearly to the condition of serfs upon the soil, laboring to 
supply cargoes for her ships, and material for her mills. 

So far as lay in her power, she made of the earth one vast 
plantation, owned in England, and worked for the benefit 
of British capital. It is not surprising that, with such a 



52 ENGLAND AND THE EASTERN QUESTION. 

spirit and aims, the English aristocracy should sympathize 
with our slaveholding rebels. 

The present position and policy of France and England, 
and the motives in which their alliance originated, will be 
better understood, if we consider the nature of the conflict 
which these two powers waged with each other for a hun- 
dred years previous to their new-born friendship. 

It was a contest for the dominion of the world, and as 
commerce, and particularly the trade of the East, was the 
chief source of wealth and power, it was a straggle for com- 
mercial supremacy, both in India and America. It will 
appear that the war which France and England carried on 
with each other from about the middle of the eighteenth 
century to the fall of the first Napoleon, sprung from the 
same general cause that originated the alliance itself. Many 
other causes, doubtless, contributed to produce the European 
wars of the last hundred years — still the great question 
which convulsed Europe was, whether England or France 
should be the great naval and commercial power of the 
world — and when they found that the power of both might 
be endangered by the rapid progress of Russia and the 
United States, they united in the unexpected alliance, in 
order to cripple these two rivals, declaring from the first, 
that this alliance reached in design beyond the settlement 
of the Eastern Question, that it had also a reference to the 
affairs of the West. 

"France and England united, will be strong enough to 
control the world," this was the central idea of the alliance. 
They fought each other in order that the victor might 
govern the nations — and when it was found that neither 
could do this separately, they agreed to attempt it together. 
During the conflict, and in the alliance, however, their 
motives have not in all respects been the same. "While 
England has been controlled mainly by commercial con- 
siderations, by the wish to be the money centre of the world, 
France has aimed not only at this, but she has been swayed 
also by a religious idea, and by the affinities of the Latin 
race. 



ENGLAND AND THE EASTERN QUESTION. 53 

She has sought to strengthen or establish the Papacy 
wherever her power could reach. To govern Europe as the 
head of the Latin races and the Papal Church, is an idea 
never lost sight of by the French Priesthood or the French 
Rulers, and to secure this ecclesiastical and political power, 
she, like England, has striven for a hundred years to con- 
trol the commerce both of the East and the West. 

Because of these different motives, which have guided the 
course of these two powers, it will be necessary to observe 
them separately, although they were engaged in the same 
field, and in conflict with each other. 

As the great colonial enterprise of England has been the 
seizure and occupation of India, and because her deep interest 
in the Eastern Question had no reference to the welfare of 
Turkey, but sprung from her anxiety for her Eastern pos- 
sessions, we may look to her operations on that vast field 
for an illustration of that spirit which so eagerly desires the 
destruction of this Republic, in order that America may be 
reduced again to colonial weakness and dependence, and 
which is quite willing that France should imitate in Mexico 
her own East Indian example. 

In no other quarter of the globe has G reat Britain had an 
opportunity of exhibiting her real character on a large scale 
as she has done in India. In dealing with her American 
colonies, she was restrained by intelligence and power, on 
the part of those whom she attempted to tread down ; but 
the feeble Hindoo could offer no effectual resistance, and on 
that vast field where there was no let nor hindrance, we 
have a right to infer that the real national spirit of England 
was revealed. 

There, she had none to judge and none to restrain ; she 
was not forced to any act which her judgment or her heart 
rejected, and she was not compelled to refrain from anything 
which she desired to do, and if any one asks what is the 
real temper and conduct of England in dealing with others, 
it is a perfectly legitimate answer to point him to her course 
in India, from the landing of Clive in 1751, down to the 
close of the Sepoy mutiny. Siuce that event, external infill- 



54 ENGLAND AND THE EASTERN QUESTION. 

ences, the opinion of the world, and the fear of another and 
successful revolt, are modifying her spirit and her course. 

The rise and rapid growth of Great Britain's East 
Indian Empire, is one of the marvels of modern times, and 
Americans will better understand the nature of the nation 
that has sought to destroy us through this rebellion, if they 
will study the manner in which she has obtained and 
governed her Indian possessions. 

In 1750 England possessed a few trading factories, or 
ports, on the coast of Malabar and Coromandel, with the 
same right, and no more, of enlarging her territory by con- 
quest, that Louis Napoleon would have of conquering the 
United States, if we should grant the French permission to 
have cotton trading ports opposite Matamoras — or to state 
the case more accurately, if he should make a bargain with 
some local authorities there for land, and then declare war 
if the United States should object to his occupation of our 
territory. The rapidity with which the Indian Empire 
grew from this small beginning, is thus stated by the 
Edinburgh Review, for January, 1863: "In 1757 England 
had obtained not quite 5,000 square miles. In 1793 she had 
enlarged her dominion to 200,000 squares miles, with a 
population of 40,000,000. The former had grown when 
the charter was renewed in 1813, to 320,000 square miles, 
and the latter to 60,000,000, which again were increased in 
1833, to 462,000 square miles, peopled by at least 100,000,000 
of natives. At this day," adds the Review, " the surface 
extent of land actually contributing to the Indian treasury 
falls little short of 600,000 square miles, with a population 
of 120,000,000." 

The manner in which this vast territory has been acquired, 
this great population trodden down, is very forcibly pre- 
sented in the Westminster Review, for January, 1863, from, 
which the following extracts are taken : 

" To us annexation is only a long word. By the natives 
of India it is felt to be an awful reality. As Mr. Ludlow 
well says, we should view the annexation ' not as swathed 



ENGLAND AND THE EASTERN QUESTION. 55 

mummies in a Parliamentary Paper, but as bleeding corpses 
before the eyes of the multitude, with many a dark-skinned 
Mark Antony to put tongues in every wound,' The only 
way in which to bring the consequences of annexation 
home to us is to put such a case as the following. Let us 
suppose, that France is the dominant Power in Europe; 
that neither England nor any other country is a match for 
her; that she does not wish to commence hostilities against 
any of them, but offers to be peaceful on condition that her 
claims to supreme power are recognized. Let it also be 
supposed that a treaty is concluded, by which, on the Queen 
of England surrendering one-half of her territories, the 
remaining half is guaranteed to her and her successors for 
ever. Suppose further, that suddenly and without cause, 
France decrees the annexation of England, occupies London 
with troops, dethrones the Queen, dismisses her Ministers, 
deprives every one connected with the Court and Govern- 
ment of their places, salaries, and pensions, shuts every 
public employment against Englishmen, except perhaps the 
honorable posts of letter-carriers, policemen and scavengers. 
How should we feel under these circumstances? Should 
we content ourselves with a little extra grumbling, and 
then adapt ourselves to our altered stations ? Or, if Ave felt 
sure that grumbling and resistance would not better our 
condition, should we not cherish bitter animosity against 
those who had treated us so badly, and should we not expect 
impartial onlookers to pity our fallen fortunes? It is to 
such straits as these that we have reduced the upper and 
middle classes of every principality which has been annexed. 
All have been put on an equal footing; left without hope 
of change and deprived of gratifying a natural ambition to 
distinguish themselves in the world. Under native rulers, 
natives are advanced to places of honor and emolument; 
under English rule, natives of every class are contemned 
and degraded. When governed by natives, most princi- 
palities yield surplus revenues; of this Sattara was a striking 
example. Lord Dalhousie coveted the large sum which 
was thus produced; he annexed that State, and the result 



56 ENGLAND AND THE EASTERN QUESTION. 

has beeii an annual deficit. If independent States are well 
governed, the} 7 teach us a lesson ; if badly governed, their 
inhabitants can draw a comparison in our favor. Should 
independent princes acquire wealth, they either expend it 
among their people, or else invest it in Indian securities ; 
in either case India is a gainer. When Englishmen acquire 
wealth they remit it to Europe, and thereby help to impov- 
erish India. 

" To the policy of annexation let there be an end. Let 
us begin to conciliate those who have good cause to detest 
us, and consider it a nobler thing to govern humanely and 
well, than to acquire fresh territory at the expense of our 
honor, and by disregarding every rule of law and every 
human right. By acting thus we shall be the gainers in 
the long run. In 1800 the Duke of Wellington declared, 
what is even truer now than when he made the declaration, 
that the extension of our territory and influence had 
exceeded our means. ' Wherever we spread ourselves we 
increase this evil. We throw out of employment and 
means of subsistence all who have hitherto managed the 
revanue, commanded, or served in the armies, and have 
plundered the country. These people become additional 
enemies, at the same time that, by the extension of our ter- 
ritory, our means of supporting our Government and of 
defending ourselves are proportionately decreased.' 

" To his policy of annexation we owe it that much of 
what Captain Bruce told Robert Southey more than twenty 
years ago is true to the letter still : ' If our empire in that 
country were overthrown, the only monuments which would 
remain of us would be broken bottles and corks. Along 
the whole coast our Government is popular, because the 
people share in the advantages of a flourishing trade. But 
in the interior we are hated. There is a grinding system 
of exaction ; we take nine-tenths ; and the natives feel the 
privation of honors and places of authority more than the 
weight of imposts. One of them compared our system to 
a screw, slow in its motion, never violent or sudden, but 
always screwing them down to the very earth.' It is 



ENGLAND AND THE EASTERN QUESTION. 57 

improbable that we shall ever cease to tax, but we can 
easily cease to torment the natives. Although we may 
never gain their love, yet we need not continue to merit 
their unmitigated hate. We may and we ought to refrain 
from reducing every class and degree among them to the 
same level of abject dependence on our bounty and subjec- 
tion to our decrees, thereby wilfully shocking their prej udices 
and cruelly exciting their fears, causing the man of rank to 
live in continual dread for the suppression of his title, the 
landholder for the confiscation of his property." 

It is fortunate for an American who would describe the 
nature and results of British rule in India, that all the facts 
are furnished by English witnesses, and that England has 
drawn her own portrait as a ruler of colonies. Evidence 
of the same character, coming from any other source, would 
certainly be discredited. 

One fact is quite sufficient to show the main cause of the 
wretchedness of the great mass of the people of India, and 
reveals very clearly the pressure not of a Government, but 
of an oppression. The Government holds all the lands of 
the country as the supreme Landlord, and the laborers are 
tenants at will, or hold only by leases at stipulated rates — 
the rent required leaving for the cultivator nothing but the 
most scanty food, and clothing, and shelter, so that the 
laborer can obtain no interest in the soil, has no motive 
for improvement, and has no hope for himself or his chil- 
dren beyond his mud hut and his handful of rice. Some 
beneficial alterations are being made in this respect; the 
leases are being given for longer periods than they once 
were, but still there is no approach to that system which is , 
the strength and glory of America, the absolute ownership » 
of the land by those who till it. 

Americans at least understand that it is absolutely essential 
to the elevation of the laboring classes, that they should be 
the owners of the soil. Wherever this is not the case, they 
are speedily reduced to the rudest hut, and the coarsest and 
scantiest food and clothing, as the sole reward of their labor, 



58 ENGLAND AND THE EASTERN QUESTION. 

It is perhaps quite natural, that Great Britain, whose 
lands at home are nearly all in the hands of the aristocracy, 
and whose peasantry are but a single step above the condi- 
tion of serfs, should deem it quite proper that the East 
Indian Government should own all the lands of India, which 
they could seize, and allow the native cultivators to retain 
only the slave's portion of their earnings; and it is not 
strange that this same aristocracy is in active and earnest 
sympathy with the slave lords of the South, in their attempt 
to destroy the free labor institutions of the North. 

Every oppressor is by instinct in league with all other 
oppressors, in every attempt to reduce the laborer to the 
condition of the slave. 

The actual condition of India, under British rule, and the 
spirit of the English Government, is well exhibited in the 
following extracts from the Edinburgh Review, for Janu- 
ary, 1853 : 

" Still the utmost that can be predicated even of the Ryots, 
considered as subjects of the English Crown, is that they 
seldom, if ever, trouble themselves with discussing the merits 
of the system under which they live ; being content to do as 
their fathers did before them, and satisfied so long as life 
and property are safe. But it is not so with any of the 
classes above the mere cultivators : quite otherwise. They 
see in the English Government a power which, however 
evenly it may profess to hold the scales between man and 
man, entertains no sympathy for them or for the traditions 
of their ancestry. They may acquire fortunes by trade ; 
they may build ships and obtain the honor of knighthood ; 
and whatever they earn by honest industry they feel that 
•they will be permitted to keep : but all beyond this is a 
blank; and they are fully alive to its dreariness. There 
are no such avenues to advancement opened to them as 
stirred the ambition and stimulated the exertions of their 
forefathers. They cannot attain in the civil service of the 
State to a station more elevated than that of an ill-paid rural 
magistrate, or a clerk in one of the public offices. Even the 



ENGLAND AND THE EASTERN QUESTION. 59 

status of a practising attorney in the Courts of Law seems 
to be denied to them, though the decision of the judge who 
settled the question was manifestly delivered under a pain- 
ful sense of its iniquity. And as to the army, we shall have 
occasion presently to explain, that it offers no prizes for 
which it would be worth while for a native gentleman to 
strive. Now people so circumstanced cannot be loyal in 
any sense of the term. They may submit to their fate with 
more or less of resignation ; either because they see no 
chance of escape from it, or through the influence of that 
fatalism which enters largely into the faith of all the reli- 
gionists of the East. But it is impossible that they can 
nourish the slightest feeling of love for the government 
which thus grinds them down, far less be prepared to make 
sacrifices of any kind in defence of it. JSTor do they. By 
the native gentry of India, — and it is a great mistake to 
suppose that India has not its gentry of ancient lineage and 
proud reminiscences,— the rule of the English is regarded 
not only without favor, but with settled detestation. There 
is not one among them all but would rejoice to see it over- 
thrown to-morrow. 

" In a word, it is idle to talk of the contentment of the 
'people of British India with the particular form of govern- 
ment which we have established among them. They submit 
to it, because they cannot help themselves, — the masses with 
the same degree of apathy which caused their co-religionists 
to submit to the government of the Ameers in Scinde, and 
to that of the Sikh Sirdars in the Punjab. But no living 
soul entertains the slightest predilection for us or for our 
government, while all who may be crossed by it in their 
schemes of personal or family ambition execrate, while they 
endure, what they feel to be the wrong. 

" That we are taking no prejudiced view of this important 
matter, nor broaching opinions that lack authority on which 
to rest, a very little research on the part of our readers will 
enable them to ascertain. The statements adduced here 
have been held and promulgated by almost every man of 
note who has made India and its institutions the subject of 



60 ENGLAND AND THE EASTERN QUESTION. 

his inquiries. Open Mountstuart's Elphinstone's able His- 
tory, and yon will find the same tone pervading every page. 
He speaks of the people whom we thus slight and keep 
down as having attained to a high degree of civilization 
and prosperity before the march of Alexander across the 
Oxus. He describes them as retaining these advantages in 
the midst of endless wars, revolutions, and schemes. And 
he attributes the circumstance to their admirable municipal 
institutions, which survived every change of dynasty except 
the last. ' Dynasty upon dynasty,' he says, quoting from 
Sir Charles Metcalf, ' tumbles down ; revolution succeeds 
revolution, — Hindoo, Pagan, Moghul, Mahratta, Sikh, Eng- 
lish, are all masters in turn ; but the village community 
remain the same. This union of the village communities, 
each one forming a separate little state in itself, has contri- 
buted more than any other cause to the preservation of the 
people of India through all the changes and revolutions 
they have suffered ; and is in a high degree conducive to 
their happiness and to their enjoyment of a great portion 
of freedom and independence.' Again : ' The main evil of 
our system is, the degraded state in which we hold the 
natives. We suppose them to be superstitious, ignorant, 
prone to falsehood, and corrupt. In our well-meaning zeal 
for their welfare, we shudder at the idea of committing to 
men so depraved any share in the administration of their 
own country. We exclude them from every situation of 
trust and emolument ; we confine them to the lowest offices, 
with scarcely a bare subsistence ; and even these are left in 
their hands from necessity, because Europeans are utterly 
incapable of filling them. We treat them as an inferior 
race of beings. Men, who under a native government might 
have held the first dignities of the State, who, but for us, 
might have been governors of provinces, are regarded as 
little better than menial servants, are often no better paid, 
and scarcely permitted to sit in our presence. We reduce 
them to this abject state, and then look upon them with 
disdain as men unworthy of high station. Under most of 
the Mahomedan princes of India, the Hindoos were eligible 



ENGLAND AND THE EASTERN QUESTION. 61 

to all the civil offices of Government, and they rrequently 
possessed a more important share in them than their con- 
querors.' 

" They are more secure from the calamities both of foreign 
war and internal commotions ; their persons and property 
are more secure from violence; they cannot be wantonly 
punished, or their property seized, by persons in power; 
and their taxation is, on the whole, lighter. But, on the 
other hand, they have no share in making laws for them- 
selves, little in administering them, except in very subordinate 
offices ; they can rise to no high station, civil or military ; 
they are everywhere regarded as an inferior race, and often 
rather as vassals or servants than as the ancient owners and 
masters of the country. It is not enough that we confer 
upon the natives the benefits of just laws and moderate 
taxation, unless we endeavor to raise their character; but, 
under a foreign government, there are so many causes which 
tend to depress it, that it is not easy to prevent it from 
sinking. It is an old observation, that he who loses his 
liberty, loses half his virtue. This is true of nations as well 
as of individuals. To have no property scarcely degrades 
more in one case, than in the other to have property at the 
disposal of a foreign government in which we have no share. 
The enslaved nation loses the 'privileges of a nation, as the 
slave does that of a free man. It loses the privilege of 
taxing itself, of making its own laws, of having any share 
in their administration, or in the general government of the 
country. British India has none of these privileges ; it has 
not that of being ruled by a despot of its own ; for, to a 
nation which has lost its liberty, it is still a privilege to have 
its countiwmen, and not foreigners, as its rulers. Nations 
always take a part with their government, whether free or 
despotic, against foreigners. Against an invasion of for- 
eigners, the national character is always engaged, and in 
such a cause the people often contend as strenuously in the 
defence of a despotic as of a free government. It is not the 
arbitrary power of a national sovereign, but the subjugation 
to a foreign one, that destroys national character, and extin- 



62 ENGLAND AND THE EASTERN QUESTION. 

guislies national spirit. When a people cease to have a 
national character to maintain, they lose the mainspring of 
whatever is laudable, both in public and in private life, and 
the private sinks with the public character. This is true of 
every nation, as well as of India. It is true of our own. 
Let Britain be subjugated by a foreign power to-morrow; 
let the people be excluded from all share in the government, 
from public honors, from every office of high trust and 
emolument ; let them, in every situation, be considered as 
unworthy of trust, and all their knowledge, and all their 
literature, sacred and profane, will not save them from 
becoming, in another ceutury or two, a low-minded, deceit- 
ful, and dishonest race.' 

" These are words of wisdom, put upon record by one who 
better, perhaps, than any servant of the Company, under- 
stood the subject which he was discussing. Nor was he,, 
while thus reasoning, blind to the well-nigh universal degra- 
dation of the people whose cause he pleaded. No one 
knew better than he that the inhabitants of the Company's 
dominions are the most abject race in India; no one was 
more keenly and bitterly aware of the causes which had 
produced such a result. For even the wretched satisfaction 
of seeing the strangers who seek their shores for the purpose 
of growing rich at the public expense, settle down, and 
become, by degrees, one of themselves, is denied them. 
Other conquerors had overrun their territories before, as- 
sumed supreme power, and dispensed patronage ; but they 
did so upon the spot, and excluded no man, of whatever 
race descended, from a share in it. We send out our youth 
by shoals from England to amass wealth and exercise power 
for a season ; each batch returning to England, when it has 
satisfied its own wishes, onty that it may be succeeded by 
another. What bond of good feeling can exist between the 
hundred and twenty millions whom we thus govern and 
the few thousands of white-faced men whom we appoint to 
plunder while they profess to govern and protect them." 

Such is the British dominion in India, extending at this 



ENGLAND AND THE EASTERN QUESTION. 63 

time over 150,000,000 of people ; such, according to her own 
witnesses," is the manner in which it has been acquired, and 
these in general are the results of her government for the 
millions she has thus subdued. 

A reference to these facts was necessary, in order to show 
clearly the nature of her policy, and the unscrupulous selfish- 
ness with which she has carried it out, when she was dealing" 
with those weaker than herself. It was important to know 
that in all her course in India, no moral or religious con- 
sideration was permitted to interfere with any plan for 
extending her power or increasing her revenues, that neither 
the rights or welfare of others were allowed to have the 
slightest influence in deciding a question of conquest or 
annexation, and that the only inquiry was, will this increase 
the British power, and add to the wealth of Englishmen ? 
It was necessary to know this, in order to prepare us for 
her subsequent attack upon Russia, and her recent joy at 
the prospect of our destruction, the desire to attack us in 
our weakness, so strong, that we barely escaped a war, and 
for the malicious blow struck upon our commerce through 
the Confederate privateers. This East Indian history will 
also enable us to judge exactly how much we can depend 
upon pleasant words or argument, or appeals made to con- 
science, or honor, or justice, when dealing with England, 
unless back of all these, are the ships and the cannon which 
excite her fears. 

This glance at the doings and policy of Great Britain in 
India, will enable us to estimate aright her motives in the 
Crimean war, and to judge whether we have any reason to 
expect her friendship in the future. Her policy in India is 
the same that guides her in her dealings with every other 
nation. She carries it out on all sides so far as she has the 
power, and she crushes, if she can, whatever opposes. 

The one central idea of this policy is, to make Great 
Britain the manufacturing, the commercial, the money 
centre of the world. For this purpose she has "seized upon 
every available spot of earth and made it tributary to her- 
self, taking the Lion's share of all that could be produced, 



64 ENGLAND AND THE EASTERN QUESTION. 

stripping her American colonies by oppressive enactments, 
and leaving the people of India just enough to enable them 
to continue their toil for her. 

As shown in quotations previously made, she struggled 
hard to render manufactures, commerce, and a navy, impos- 
sible in America, for the same reasons that she would gladly 
destroy them now; and she ruined the domestic manufactures 
of India, in order to compel the Hindoos to raise the raw 
material for her own mills, and then to purchase from her 
the manufactured articles, the Indian consumer paying thus 
not only the profit of manufacture to England, but the 
freight to her ships for carrying it twice across the ocean. 

The position of England at the time just preceding the 
Alliance with France, and the Crimean war, her necessities, 
dangers, hopes and fears, were the natural result of the 
policy which she had been pursuing for more than a hun- 
dred years, to compel the nations to be tributary to her 
capital, skill, machinery, and ships, to make them virtually 
mere colonial appendages of her own central power. 

Her aim was, to control, and bring to her own mills, as 
far as possible, the raw material of the world, and having 
xnanufactured it, resell it in all markets, levying upon the 
people the tribute of her profits, and the freight of her ships. 
To the full extent of her ability she prevented every other 
nation from manufacturing for itself, or building up a com- 
merce or a navy of its own. While her own manufactures 
were in their infancy, she excluded every rival from the 
markets that she could control, as she did from the American 
colonies ; but so soon as her accumulated capital, her skill 
and experience, and her perfected machinery, gave her the 
necessary superiority, then she proclaimed the doctrine of 
free trade to all the nations, knowing well that if she could 
thus gain access to the markets of the world, her capital 
and skill would thus enable her to crush the growth of 
manufactures elsewhere. Particularly did she desire a per- 
fectly untrammelled trade with Russia and America, because 
exactly in proportion as she could introduce her own goods, 



ENGLAND AND THE EASTERN QUESTION. 65 

would she prevent the erection of mills, and the growtn of 
a commerce and a navy. 

In this policy the South has continually sympathized 
most earnestly with England, because she feared as much 
as Great Britain the rapid growth of the Free States, and 
the Southern leaders have persistently opposed any substan- 
tial protection to Northern manufactures, because of the 
wealth, the commerce, and the navy, which they would 
create. 

If the North could only be restricted to the raising of 
grain, wool, stock, etc., the supremacy of the Slave States 
would be permanent and complete. 

At the time of the formation of the French Alliance, the 
power of England was based, not upon her military strength, 
nor upon the extent of her territory, nor upon the number 
of her people, but upon her capital, her mills, and her navy, 
and these again depended upon her power to control the 
lands producing her raw material, and the markets for the 
sale of her goods. At this time France was becoming a 
formidable naval power, and England feared that she would 
attempt to avenge the disgrace of Waterloo ; Russia was 
cherishing her manufacturus, opening up on all sides her 
resources, increasing her navy, and growing on towards 
India. In the West, the United States were meeting her 
already in the world's markets with the produce of their 
own looms, while their commercial marine was equal to her 
own. Such was the condition of England just previous to 
the alliance. 
5 



66 REMOTER CAUSES OF THE PRESENT POLICY OF FRANCE. 



CHAPTER VII. 

REMOTER CAUSES OF THE PRESENT POLICY OF FRANCE. 

In addition to the motives which have governed England 
in her struggle to compel all nations to become tributary 
to her, there are others of almost equal power that are 
peculiar to France, and which must be studied, in order to 
understand her attack upon Russia, her present attitude 
towards the United States, and her movement upon Mexico. 

First — France has never forgotten that she was once the 
Imperial Head of the nations of Europe ; in fact, the politi- 
cal and religious Dictator of the world. The Empire of 
Charlemagne is regarded as presenting France in her right- 
ful position, as Ruler of the Latin nations, and these, it is 
believed, ought to be supreme in Europe. The Kingdom 
of Charlemagne is looked upon as the luminous point, the 
triumphant era in tlie history of France, and the idea of 
re-establishing her lost supremacy, of making her throne 
once more the Imperial center of the world, has influenced 
the policy of her ablest statesmen, and her most ambitious 
kings. It is well known that this thought was a leading 
one in the mind of the first Napoleon, and he indicated this 
most clearly by causing himself to be crowned with the iron 
crown of Charlemagne, as a sign of what he intended to be, 
and to do. 

His expedition into Egypt was connected with this idea 
of making France the central power of Europe. He hoped 
to wrest from England the control of the Eastern trade, by 
holding Egypt, and other Eastern shores of the Mediter- 



REMOTER CAUSES OF THE PRESENT POLICY OF FRANCE. 67 

ranean, and by bringing the wealth, of the Indies to the 
French cities, through the old canal of the Pharoahs. He 
thought in this manner to possess himself of Constantinople, 
to revive the Eastern Empire, and so render impossible the 
further progress of Russia towards the East. 

The declarations and the acts of Louis Napoleon have 
given explicit notice to the world, that he has fully adopted 
the main ideas of his uncle, and that he intends to carry 
them out. His alliance with England, for the double pur- 
pose of ridding himself of a powerful adversary while he 
perfected his plans, and of using her for his own purposes ; 
his attack on Russia, his movement upon Italy, and the 
occupation of Rome, his position in Syria, the finishing of 
the ship canal across the Isthmus of Suez, in which he is 
now engaged, the plans which years ago he made of a ship 
canal aeross the American Isthmus at Panama, the explora- 
tions which he has made of the mineral wealth of our Pacific 
coast, and now his occupation of Mexico — all are parts of 
one gigantic scheme, to make France once more the recog- 
nized head of the Latin races in all parts of the world, and 
give to her more than the power and splendor of the Empire 
of Charlemagne. Whoever attempts to study the career 
of Louis Napoleon without understanding this scheme, will 
have no key to his policy. Viewed in connection with this, 
every movement is plain. 

But the religious sentiment has also exerted an important 
influence upon the policy of France. In the time of Char- 
lemagne, she was the one Empire which, with the one 
Church, ruled all the Western world. The Roman Church 
and the Roman Empire, with the French king at its head, 
they were jointly supreme. The Empire was the earthly 
ally and supporter of the Church, and the Church gave to 
the Empire the full authority of what was deemed by all a 
Divine sanction. Charlemagne was crowned as Emperor 
of the Romans, and the Roman Church, and Roman Empire, 
with France as its head, were expected to go down into the 
future together. 

The Imperial crown then passed from France into the 



68 REMOTER CAUSES OF THE PRESENT POLICY OF FRANCE. 

possession of Germany ; but France has not forgotten that 
she was once the political head and recognized defender of 
the Latin Church, and from the time of Charlemagne to 
the present, the French clergy have mourned over their lost 
glory, and have hoped that in some manner it might be 
regained. For the double purpose of restoring the Koman 
Empire, with France at its head, and he the Emperor of 
France, and of bringing to his support the power of the 
church, Napoleon caused himself to be crowned by the 
Pope with the crown of Charlemagne, reviving in the 
French clergy the hope of the restoration of their former 
power. For precisely similar reasons, Louis Napoleon has 
connected his movements with the old ambitions of the 
French clergy, and of the Catholic Church as a whole, 
espousing the cause of the Roman Church at Jerusalem 
and Constantinople, and taking on that occasion the part 
of champion of the "Western Church, and then pushing 
Austria aside in Italy, and lifting France to the foremost 
position among the Latin races ; and, finally, invading Mex- 
ico, and threatening the United States, with the solemnly 
avowed intention of restoring in America the prestige of the 
Latin race, and of course, the power of the Roman Church. 

These two ideas, the restoration of the Empire, and the 
supremac3 T of the Roman Catholic Church, must not be lost 
sight of by any one who wishes to understand the policy 
of France, and they should be very carefully considered by 
Americans, because thus only can we know the power of 
the motives by which the French Emperor is governed, 
both in his attack upon Mexico, and in his hostility to the 
Republic. 

Thus only can we judge whether it is probable that he 
will abandon for slight reasons what he has undertaken on 
this continent, or whether it will be necessary for us to 
decide by arms the question of imposing a French Mon- 
archy by force upon a people inhabiting our border, with 
the avowed intention of using the territory, the resources, 
and the proximity of position, as a standing menace tc 
this Republic, and to our Protestant Faith. 



REMOTER CAUSES OF THE PRESENT POLICY OF FRANCE. 69 

We shall find that our danger from this quarter is greater 
than from England, for Avhile Great Britain declares that 
she does not contend for an idea, the French movement has 
in it the dangerous element of religious enthusiasm. True, 
it is almost dormant as yet, or living only in the bosom of 
the clergy; hut the history of the church shows how easily 
a movement for the universal restoration of Romanism 
might rouse whole nations for a crusade, for what the 
people would deem a truly holy war. 

We shall find, that with the exception of a short period 
in her history, wherever France has carried her arms, she 
has borne with her a zeal for the Papal church. 

These facts, in the past history of France, have for us a 
very grave significance, when they are coupled with the 
exact words of the Emperor himself, explaining his inten- 
tions in the movement upon Mexico : " We propose," he 
says, " to restore to the Latin race, on the other side of the 
" Atlantic, all its strength and prestige. We have an inter- 
est, indeed, in the Republic of the United States being 
"powerful and prosperous; but not that she should take 
" possession of the whole Gulf of Mexico, thence to com- 
" mand the Antilles, as well as South America, and to be 
" the only dispenser of the products of the New World." 

Whoever will weigh these words in connection with the 
history of the Latin race, and Latin church, with the schemes 
of Napoleon, and the course of the present Emperor, will be 
convinced that the almost immediate future will present to 
us, and to Europe, the most solemn questions of modern 
times. It seems almost certain, that our contest with the 
slave power, fierce and bloody as it is, will be but the open- 
ing act in a war drama, and that gigantic, though it be, it 
may prove the most insignificant of the series. 

The words of Louis Napoleon appear like the throwing 
down the gage of battle to all Protestant nations, to all free 
institutions ; nay, more, to every people outside of the Papal 
church, — and the most alarming feature of the declaration 
is, that this is precisely its meaning. Such a threat in regard 
to the Western Continent presupposes the intention to restore 



70 REMOTER CAUSES OF THE PRESENT POLICY OP FRANCE. 

the lost prestige and strength of the Latin race and Papal 
church in Europe also, and the reality of this intention is 
clearly set forth in every step which the French Emperor 
has taken, from the Crimean war to the present time, 
including that proposal for a European Congress, which 
means simply an attempt to chrystallize the Latin powers 
around France as the Imperial centre, — and to make the 
Emperor not only independent of England, hut, as he hopes, 
to give him the power to crush her if he pleases. 

We know too well what is implied in the proposition to 
restore the strength and prestige of the Latin race and Papal 
church, "both here and in Europe. 

It means the destruction of civil and religious liberty, the 
suppression of free speech and free thought, the elevation 
of nobles and priests, the ignorance, the poverty, the deg- 
radation of the people. We know that this cannot be 
accomplished without such a conflict as the world never 
saw; and yet every sign of the times compels us to the 
conclusion, that such a stupendous conspiracy against the 
liberties of humanity is being matured, and that the Latin 
race and the Papal church will make the attempt under the 
lead of France, and that we must take the Emperor at his 
word, when he sets forth the invasion of Mexico as a part 
of the plan. The scheme is so bold, and so vast, that it 
seems more like a Satanic inspiration than a mere concep- 
tion of an ambitious man. 

The following extracts from a very able article on the 
Monroe Doctrine, in The New Englander, for Oct., 1863, 
exhibit the subject in a very clear and forcible manner: 

" The other dangerous element in the case before us is 
the growing arrogance and strength of the Papal Power in 
connection with all the progressive developments of French 
ambition and conquest. It is curious to see how everything 
that France does or gains or aims at becomes subservient to 
the Papal Power, and turns to the disadvantage of religious 
liberty and of enlightened civilization. Beginning with the 
overthrow of the Roman Republic, and the still continued 



REMOTER CAUSES OF THE PRESENT POLICY OF FRANCE. 71 

armed occupancy of Rome by a French army, as the only 
means of upholding the Pope in his throne as a temporal 
prince, we see in Cochin China, in Madagascar, in Turkey, 
in Spanish America, in Poland, and everywhere, that it is 
the support and favor of the Pope which constitutes Louis 
Napoleon's reliance in the last resort ; and it is the exten- 
sion and consolidation of the Papal Power which gives 
unity to all his aims, and the strength of a common interest 
to all his schemes. It is now clearly understood that the 
outbreak in Poland was but a plan for establishing in the 
centre of Europe a Franco-Romish interest that should serve 
as a point of defense and aggression against Russia and the 
Greek Church. It is Popery, struggling against the advance 
of freedom and civilization, that has for forty years kept the 
Spanish American states in turmoil, and kept them from 
consolidating their governments or improving their condi- 
tions. In Venezuela, in Colombia, in Ecuador, everywhere, 
it is the Priests' Party against the body of the people ; the 
people striving to recover the right of governing for them- 
selves, and the Priests, aided by a few bigots, a few rich 
men, a few European Know-nothings, and a good many 
reckless and marauding brigands, trying to keep the power 
of the government in the hands of a class, and subject the 
many to the control of a few. This power has at length 
been happily put down, at least for the present, by the 
gallant and patriotic President Mosquera in Colombia. It 
has succumbed, at least temporarily, to a compromise in 
Venezuela; while, in the adjoining republic of Ecuador, it 
has apparently achieved an absolute triumph, in the treaty 
which was concluded in April last, by President Morena 
with Cardinal Antonelli in the name of the Pope.* And 

* This treaty, which has been published in El National, the official journal 
of Ecuador, contains the following articles, which serve to illustrate the Poeo's 
idea of religious liberty, where he has things in his own way : 

" 1 . The Roman Catholic and Apostolic religion is the religion of the Republic 
of Ecuador. Consequently, the exercise of any other worship, or the existence 
of any society condemned by the Church, will not be permitted by the Republic. 

"2. The education of the young in all public and private schools shall be 
entirely conformed to the doctrinea of the [Roman] Catholic Religion. Tha 



72 REMOTER CAUSES OF THE PRESENT POLICY OF FRANCE. 

one of the chief ends of the conquest of Mexico by France, 
is announced to be the ascendency of the Latin race, and 
the restoration of the Church of Rome to its ancient honor 
and power in the country. The confiscation already begun 
of the estates of all Mexicans guilty of the crime of sup- 
porting their own constitutional government, will prepare 
the way for the restoration of the estates of the Church, 
valued at a hundred millions of dollars, heretofore seques- 
tered for the uses of the state. 

" In former days, the civilized world has been accustomed 
to rely for protection against any unwarrantable aggressions 
of Rome, upon the vigilance and strength of the two great 
Protestant Powers, Prussia and England. And it is a most 
unfortunate coincidence, that just at this time, when the 
Papal Power is so rapidly consolidating itself, Prussia is 
well nigh powerless for any good purpose, by the insensate 
relapse of the present monarch into the wildest madness of 
absolutism; while the government of England is under the 
administration of a chief who seems to have become practi- 
cally, but a mere satrap of Louis Napoleon. Mr. Kinglake, 
in his remarkable volume on the Crimean War, before 



teachers, the hooks, the instructions imparted, <fec, &c, [the provisions are 
given in a very condensed form], shall be submitted to the decision of the 
bishops. 

"3. Government will give its powerful patronage and support to the bishops 
in their resistance to the evil designs of wicked persons, Ac. 

"4. All matrimonial causes, and all those which concern the faith, the sacra- 
ments, the public morals, &c, are placed under the sole jurisdiction of the 
€cclesiastical tribunals, and the civil magistrates shall be charged to carry 
them into execution. The priests shall confine themselves to consulting the 
lay judges, if they think proper to do so. 

" 6. The privileges of churches [the ancient right of asylum is consecrated 
•buildings] shall be fully respected." 

The Philadelphia Catholic Herald and Visitor, August 5th, exults : 

"A most satisfactory Concordat has been concluded between the Holy See and 
the Republic of Ecuador, in South America. In that exclusively Catholic 
country, the public exercise of no other worship than the Catholic is to be allowed. 
The bishops are to have the control of the education of yosth, and to propose three 
candidates for the vacant episcopal sees to the selection of the President and of 
the Pope. No Exequatur, no Piedmontism, no Gallicanism, no shortcomings. 
The Hispano-American population, in the State of Ecuador, mean to be truly 
and generously Catholic I" 



REMOTER CAUSES OF THE PRESENT POLICY OF FRANCE. 73 

referred to, has described the process by which Great Britain 
was drawn, wholly beyond her intentions and against her 
interests, into that most bootless conflict. And there is no 
reason to expect that the same fallacious entente cordiale 
will not be made available to draw her onward, nolens 
volens, into whatever ulterior national embroilments the 
conquest of Mexico may lead to, in the interest of Popery 
and Absolutism. 

" But the Monroe Doctrine is not dead. It will not die, 
for truth never dies, and the Monroe Doctrine is an axio- 
matic truth in political science. It is as true now as it 
was when "Washington issued his Farewell Address, that 
* Europe has a set of primary interests, which to us have 
none or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged 
in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially 
foreign to our concerns.' It is as true now as it was when 
Mr. Monroe issued his Declaration, that ' any attempt on 
the part of European powers to extend their system to any 
portion of this hemisphere,' IS ' dangerous to our peace and 
safety.' And we of this day have been brought at length 
by the cogent force of events, to see as clearly as that golden 
administration saw, that 'any interposition' with any of the 
American nations, ' by any European power",' for the pur- 
pose of 'controlling their destiny,' IS 'the manifestation of 
an unfriendly disposition towards the United States.' Those 
who have doubted, now see it plainly. The efforts for forty 
years, of selfish partisans, of timid statesmen, of political 
sciolists, of venal scribblers, or of covert reactionaries, to 
make it out that the Monroe Doctrine was a brutum fulmen, 
which struck no blow and made no mark, and then vanished 
into thin air, are all blown to the winds. The clouds which 
temporarily shrouded it from general view, have been rolled 
awa}' by the winds from the South-west, and the Doctrine 
shines forth as the political cynosure by which we are to 
steer our national course through this sea of difficulties, 
until the Imperial Republic shall resume her place among 
the nations, as a light to oppressed millions, and the political 
regenerator of the world." 



74 REMOTER CAUSES OF THE PRESENT POLICY OF FRANCE. 

" What is next to be done, is not for us to prescribe. By 
what steps or through what struggles on our part the Mon- 
roe Doctrine is to be restored to its ancient respect in the 
counsels of European dynasties, will depend more upon the 
wishes of those Powers than on our own. The United 
States long ago reached that condition of conscious strength 
anticipated by Washington, when under any European 
intrusion ' we may choose peace or war, as our interest, 
guided by our justice, shall counsel.' Should the European 
Powers receive the lessons of our recent successes, and 
speedily withdraw their criminal aggressions on a neighbor- 
ing republic, thus paying their old homage to the Monroe 
Doctrine, that is well. Should they make open war upon 
us, we shall meet them as best we may, notwithstanding 
our embarrassments with the rebellion. Such a country as 
this, inhabited by such a people, and blessed with such 
institutions and such a history, is worth a struggle of a 
hundred years against the world in arms, before we allow 
the Political System of Europe to be extended over us by all 
the military force that can be brought against us. Should 
they merely continue their intrusions and impertinencies, 
we can ailbrd to consult our own convenience, and choose 
our own time for appealing to the last resort of injured 
nations for redress of the wrong. 

" And if the European Powers should see fit to press the 
matter to its ultimate issue, we shall not shrink from our 
proper responsibility, as a free people and the friends of free 
institutions. And the Powers may be sure that we shall 
not stand wholly on the defensive. We will say no word 
and do no act implying an admission that the Political Sys- 
tem of America is less honorable than that of Europe, or 
less true, or less beneficent, or less worthy of heroic sacrifices 
in its cause, or less deserving of universal adoption. The 
question will then lie between the European System for 
America, and the American System for Europe, If, by 
their machinations or aggressions, we are once involved in 
their conflicts against our will, there will be no more peace 
for us or for them, until the American ideas of national 



REMOTER CAUSES OF THE PRESENT POLICY OF FRANCE. 75 

independence and responsibility have been spread over the 
countries of the Old World, and the doctrines of national 
interference and the Balance of Power have been cast among 
the rubbish with the systems of absolutism and popular 
ignorance which they were devised to support. And let 
God give the victory to the right !" 

"With the statement of these general views we shall be 
better prepared to follow France intelligently in her direct 
struggle with England for colonial and commercial supre- 
macy. Near the close of the seventeenth century, when 
the power of Louis XIV. was at its heighth, France had 
nearly reached the position which she held under Charle- 
magne. The French Monarch assumed the attitude of 
Judge and Dictator of Europe. The French navy was then 
the most formidable in the world, numbering no less than 
one hundred ships of the line, in addition to the usual 
proportion of smaller vessels. 

From this point the power of France again declined, and 
at the close of the long exhaustive war, which ended with 
the peace of Aix La Chapelle, she had no longer the power 
to carry on a great conflict, and her once formidable navy 
had been completely ruined. She was anxious for peace, 
in order that she might renew her strength for another 
effort to control the world. At the very time when she 
was negotiating the peace of Aix La Chapelle, she was 
already forming her plans for future aggressions. The 
commercial idea, as Bancroft has stated, had become about 
that time the leading one in European policy; and it was 
clearly seen that whatever nation should control the trade 
of the East, in connection with extensive colonies, would 
become the centre of power for Europe. Acting upon this 
idea, France formed the design of obtaining for herself vast 
colonial possessions, both in the East and West, and as a 
necessary part of the plan, began at once with great vigor, 
and on a large scale, the reconstruction of her navy. 

M. Dupleix was at this time Governor of Pondicherry, a 
trading post which the French then held in India, and he 



76 REMOTER CAUSES OF THE PRESENT POLICY OF FRANCE. 

urged upon France to possess herself of the whole of Ilin- 
dostan, and then make that a base of operations for the 
subjugation of all Eastern Asia, and make it a colonial 
empire subject to the French crown. 

The magnificence of this conception is well attested by 
the manner in which the dazzling project has been executed 
by Great Britain — and it shows, also, the largeness of the 
ambition of which the French mind is capable. 

Galissioniere, who was then Governor of Canada, pro- 
posed to his Government a scheme of conquest in America 
of equal grandeur. This was no less a project than to draw 
a military cordon around the English colonies, from the 
St. Lawrence to the mouth of the Mississippi, and thus 
confine at the outset these colonies to a narrow strip on the 
Atlantic, then gradually expel them from the continent, 
and place America permanently in the hands of the Latin 
race and Papal church, France holding the North, and 
Spain the South of the Western world. 

Almost immediately after the peace of Aix La Chapelle, 
in 1748, France engaged in the most active measures for 
carrying out these great designs by which she hoped to 
cripple the power of England, and make herself mistress 
of Europe and the world. In both hemispheres she began 
ao-o-ressive movements that were intended to lead to war. 

Co 

In India M. Dupleix began that system which England 
has so successfully practiced since, of intriguing among the 
native princes, espousing the quarrel of one party for the 
purpose of weakening and plundering both. He conceived 
the idea of controlling India by procuring for France the 
appointment of princes for the provinces, and was himself 
appointed Nabob of the Carnatic, a valuable province in 
the Eastern part of Hindostan. 

By various arts, and acts of violence, the French posses- 
sions in India were rapidly extended, until they held the 
Eastern or Coromandel coast for six hundred miles. At 
this point, the progress of the French in India was arrested 
by the English through the genius of Captain, afterwards 
Lord Clive, who first established the British Empire in the 



REMOTER CAUSES OF THE PRESENT POLICY OF FRANCE. 77 

East on a firm foundation — and opened one of the darkest 
chapters in all human history, if England's own witnesses 
are worthy of belief. 

The attempt of Dupleix was only the carrying out of an 
idea which long before occupied the French mind, and the 
leaders of the Papal church. He whom history has named 
the great Colbert, the leading statesman of the early part 
of the reign of Louis XIV., had established an East Indian 
Company at Pondicherry in 1664, nearly an hundred years 
before Dupleix' s time. At the same time he created a navy, 
which made France for the time the first maritime power 
of the world. His intentions were exactly the same with 
those of Dupleix and the French statesmen of his time; 
the same with those of Napoleon, when he made such 
gigantic efforts to crush the naval power of England, and 
by the possession of Egypt and Syria to control for himself 
the commerce of the East, the same which governs the 
whole policy of Louis Napoleon now. 

Leading: ideas control the movements of nations for cen- 
turies, and the battle of the ages is continually renewed. 
France, age after age, struggles to realize the French idea 
of the political and ecclesiastical supremacy of Europe and 
the world. The political and the religious have not always 
been obviously united, and France has even for a time been 
guided by the irreligious, the infidel sentiment. Still the 
Papacy, with a brief exception, has been ever a power in 
the State ; and now Louis Napoleon bases his grand move- 
ment upon the affinities and prejudices of race, and upon 
the revived ambition and superstitions of the Latin Church. 
It has, therefore, become the widest and most dangerous 
movement of modern times. 

The enterprize, the zeal, the activity of the Papal church, 
and its power, is well illustrated by its movements in the East. 
A hundred years before France had made any important 
settlements in India, the missionaries of the Latin church 
were traversing India and China with a heroic daring and 
endurance of hardship, unmatched since the days of Paul, 
they spread every where in the East such knowledge of 



78 REMOTER CAUSES OF THE PRESENT POLICY OF FRANCE. 

Christ as they had themselves, their zeal for God apparently 
bounded by the one idea of extending the dominions of the 
Pope, and salvation being in their view secured by baptism 
into the communion of the Papal church. 

But whatever their motives, their enterprise and their 
enthusiasm were both boundless. Nothing seemed too 
great to attempt, or too difficult to perform. Such mis- 
sionaries as Zavier defied all dangers, whether from heat, 
or deserts, or pestilence, or wild beasts, or hostile men. 
These operations show us the prodigious power of religious 
enthusiasm, and history informs us how well the Romish 
church understands its nature and its use. It is this power 
to which the leaders of the Papacy, in union with the 
statesmen and Emperor of France, intend to appeal in their 
present designs. The ancient supremacy of the Romish 
church, the former prestige and strength of the Latin race, 
the glory of France, these form the spell words with which 
Louis Napoleon's Jesuits hope to rouse the Catholic nations 
of Europe, and unite them under France as Imperial Head. 
Thus are the schemes of to-day connected with those of 
the past. 

For more than half a century, from the landing of Clive 
in India till the fall of Bonaparte, the contest was carried 
on for the possession of the East, but France was unsuc- 
cessful, and forced back at all points, and the final result 
left her with only an inconsiderable territory around Pon- 
dicherry, while England rules over one hundred and fifty 
millions of East Indian subjects. 

France, however, as we shall see, has not abandoned the 
idea of dominion in the East. Her plan for possessing her- 
self of North America, and for securing all America for the 
Latin race, an 1 Papal church, was as vast as the one she 
formed foi* India. In the exploration of the Western Con- 
tinent, the missionary operations of the church had preceded 
the march of armies, and the progress of commerce — as they 
had also done in India. With the leaders of the Papacy, 
territory is sought only to extend the dominion of the Pope 
and the church, and with the newly awakening zeal of 



REMOTER CAUSES OF THE PRESENT POLICY OF FRANCE. 79 

Romanism as a stimulant, it is easy to foresee what would 
follow the establishment of French supremacy on this 
Western Continent. 

At least a hundred years before the American Revolution, 
the Jesuit Missionaries were busy around the Lakes and in 
the Valley of the Mississippi. They had followed the great 
lakes to Superior, they had gone on southward to the Mis- 
sissippi, and their stations were planted on the banks of the 
Ohio. From Quebec to New Orleans, the whole West has 
been one great Missionary field for the Church of Rome 
nearly two hundred years ago, and it is not strange perhaps, 
that the Catholic Powers should often consider whether it 
is possible for them to recover again this lost dominion of 
the West. 

The French plan for the military occupation of North 
America embraced a series of fortified posts, extending from 
Louisburg on the Atlantic coast westward, to Quebec and 
Montreal, and along the great lakes, and then southward 
to New Orleans. Besides this general line, there were some 
Btrong positions on Lake Champlain, and in the upper por- 
tion of the Valley of the Mohawk, and on the upper waters 
of the Ohio. 

The immediate effect of this chain of forts was to confine 
the English to the Atlantic coast, rendering the expansion 
of the colonies westward impossible ; the ultimate result of 
the scheme, had it proved successful, would have been, to 
expel from America the English, and the Protestant Church 
together. 

In the progress of the war which followed these encroach- 
ments of France, she was driven from all these positions in 
rapid succession, till on the plains of Abraham, Montcalm, 
in dying, yielded virtually to Great Britain all that France 
possessed in America, with the exception of New Orleans. 
This at length was ceded by Napoleon to the United States, 
and thus the colonial empire of France, both in India and 
America, vanished, leaving only a little patch of territory 
in India, and some insignificant islands in the West Indian 
group. 



80 REMOTER CAUSES OF THE PRESENT POLICY OF FRANCE. 

At the close of the war which ended with the fall of 
Bonaparte, France found herself stripped of her vast colo- 
nial possessions, which were all in the hands of the Power 
she hated, and feared more than all others — and by that 
same ancient enemy her navy had been utterly ruined. 
France was a mortified, defeated, and weakened Power, but 
she was not utterly discouraged. She accepted such a peace 
as was granted, and with bitter memories and meditated 
revenge, she silently bided her time. She had played a 
stupendous and bloody game for the control of the com- 
merce and manufactures of the world, and with her the 
Romish church had attempted to extend the Papacy in all 
lands, and both had utterly failed. 

Protestant England was the dominant power in all the 
earth, her navy had complete command of all seas, her 
commerce was the commerce of the world, and London was 
the great money centre of Christendom. 

But mighty nations do not abandon a traditional policy, 
a national idea, because of severe defeat. They simply 
pause to recruit their strength — and such a people as the 
French, fertile in resource, energetic, and proud, recover 
very rapidly even from extreme disaster. In less than a 
century after the surrender of her North American posses- 
sions, fort} 7 -five years after the battle of Trafalgar, in which 
her navy was annihilated, and thirty-five years after Water- 
loo, where her military power was broken, France was 
prepared to renew the contest for the control of Europe 
and the world. 

The French, through the period of their humiliation, could 
scarcely name Waterloo, or think of St. Helena, without an 
execration for England, and breathing a desire for vengeance. 
Actively and steadily she gathered her resources, improved 
her army, and enlarged her navy, and England soon begaD 
to be uneasy at the rapid progress of her formidable neigh- 
bor. France at this time had been placed permanently 
under the control of Louis Napoleon. The designs of the 
new Emperor none then could penetrate, but it was quite 
evident from his military and naval preparations, that he 



REMOTER CAUSES OF THE PRESENT POLICY OF FRANCE. 81 

intended that France should play no inferior part among 
the nations of Europe. This brings us to consider the posi- 
tion of the great powers of the world just previous to the 
Anglo-French Alliance ; and it is hoped that this rapid 
review of French policy for a hundred years, will enable ua 
to understand the nature and objects of this unexpected 
compact. 

6 



82 CONDITION OF ENGLAND, FRANCE, RUSSIA AND AMERICA, 



CHAPTER VIII. 



CONDITION OF ENGLAND, FRANCE, RUSSIA AND AMERICA, WHEN THE 
ANGLO-FRENCH ALLIANCE WAS FORMED. 



Mr. Kinglake, in "The Invasion of the Crimea," com- 
ments with great severity upon the Alliance with France, 
as the one step which rendered inevitable a war with Russia, 
which might otherwise have been avoided. He says that 
the French Emperor subordinated all other considerations 
to the plan of forming with England a combination against 
Russia. In studying the policy of France it is very import- 
ant to remember this fact. France originated the war 
against Russia, and it began in a quarrel between the Latin 
and Greek Churches about the holy places at Jerusalem, 
which was carefully nursed by France into a cause of war, 
as will hereafter be made to appear, while England with 
alacrity accepted the proposal of France to attack Russia. 
But England had motives of her own. 

Mr. Kinglake seems to think that the prominent motive 
of Louis Napoleon in seeking the Alliance was to gain 
support and recognition for that throne which he had so 
lately set up with perfidy and in the blood of his country- 
men, and he presents no very satisfactory reasons for the 
course of England. 

Events have shown already, and will yet more clearly 
reveal the real intentions of these two powers in forming 
that strange agreement, in which, without sufficient osten- 
sible reasons, they suddenly abandoned the policy which for 



WHEN THE ANGLO-FRENCH ALLIANCE WAS FORMED. 83 

centuries they had pursued towards each other, and all the 
humiliations and resentments of France were apparently 
forgot. 

At this point Mr. Kinglake makes a statement in regard 
to the temper of his countrymen, which it would be wise 
for those Americans to consider, who think that the good 
feeling, the kindly sympathies of England, may be relied 
upon hereafter, if only soothing, friendly words are used by 
us, or who hope that such men as Mr. Cobdeu and Mr. 
Bright can stay the tide of British violence and passion 
when once the cry is war. After showing that the war was 
brought on by France, and that England was easily induced 
to join her, he says : 

" Welcome or unwelcome, the truth must be told. A 
" large obstacle to the maintenance of peace in Europe was 
"the temper of the English people. In public, men still 
" used forms of expression implying that they would be 
"content for England to lead a quiet life among the nations, 
" and they still classed expectations of peace among their 
"hopes, and declared in joyous tones that the prospects of 
"war were glaring and painful; but these phrases were the 
"time-honored canticles of a doctrine already discarded. 
"The English people desired war; and perhaps it ought to 
"be acknowledged that there were many to whom war, for 
" the sake of war, was no longer a hateful thought." Again 
he says: "All whose volitions were governed by the ima- 
gined freeing of Poland, or destroying Cronstadt and 
" lording it with our flag in the Baltic; or taking command 
" of the Euxiue, and sinking the Russian fleet under the 
"guns of Sebastopol; all who meant to raise Circassia, and 
'• cut otf the Muscovite from the glowing South, by holding 
" the Dariei Pass, and those also who dwelt in fancy upon 
" the deeds to be done on the shores of the Caspian ; all 
" these and many more saw plainly enough that separation 
" from the German Powers, and alliance with the new 
" Bonaparte, was the only road to adventure." The English 
people were eager for war, for the sake of war, for the sake 
of adventure — eager to strike down a power that had helped 



84 CONDITION OF ENGLAND, FRANCE, RUSSIA AND AMERICA, 

to save her from ISTapoleon, a power that had not harmed 
her, and that meditated no attack. 

Connect this statement with the late picture of that same 
English people furious with passion over the affair of the 
Trent, shouting with joy over the flames of our vessels fired 
by pirates fitted out in their own harbors, and it may easily 
be seen what safety there is in depending upon the kind 
feeling of England — even of the English people. In dealing 
with England, our iron clads and Parrott rifles, and fifteen- 
inch guns, will be found more convincing arguments than 
the most good natured and eloquent words. 

But the French Emperor and English statesmen were not 
moved by passion in forming the Alliance, or in the Crimean 
war. What then were the true reasons by which the two 
nations were governed? To answer this question, it is 
necessary to study the condition of France, England, Rus- 
sia and America, at the time when the Alliance was formed, 
and the attack on Russia was made. 

At the close of the war in 1815, when the Allied armies 
entering Paris, England occupied the proudest position in 
Europe. Both in India and America she had stripped 
France of vast colonial possessions ; in fact, to quote the 
words of Alison, " During the course of this long struggle, 
"the colonies of all the European States successively fell 
" into the hands of England." 

She had utterly destroyed tne French maritime power, 
and with it her commerce, and Wellington at Waterloo 
crushed the military idol of France and with him her army. 
The navy of England was supreme every where, and with 
her immense colonial territories, her navy, and her moral 
power, she was well prepared to rule for a time the world. 
She saw very clearly the necessities of her position. She 
understood both her strength and her weakness. She knew 
that she could not remain permanently the chief military 
power of Europe, and that she must rule the nations, if at 
all, through her capital, her machinery, and her ships. If 
she could draw from all countries the raw material for her 
work-shops aud her looms, and sell in all markets her 



WHEN THE ANGLO-FRENCH ALLIANCE WAS FORMED. 85 

manufactured fabrics, securing for herself the profits of her 
labor, her capital and machinery, and the carrying trade to 
her ships, then indeed all nations would become tributary 
to her. She pressed this scheme of aggrandizement in all 
lands to the full extent of her power, and far and near, her 
policy was crowned with a success that was equal to her 
ambition. 

Her policy was to repress and destroy all commerce and 
manufactures except her own, and she found the South 
ready to aid her in any free trade scheme which would 
prevent the growth of manufactures or commerce in the 
free States, while many of the smaller States of Europe 
were merely factors of the merchants and mill owners of 
England, so that the wealth of the world flowed towards 
that small island as the rivers to the ocean. 

In the meantime, as has been stated, France was recover- 
ing from defeat and exhaustion, and when Louis Napoleon 
seized the throne, grave apprehensions began to fill the 
English mind — nor was this anxiety without sufficient cause. 

No sooner did the new monarch feel himself secure, than 
it was apparent that the one purpose which guided all his 
movements was to make France, in the shortest possible 
time, the leading military and naval power of Europe. 
The attention which was given to the enlargement, organi- 
zation and discipline of the army, the artillery studies of 
the Emperor — and above all, the gigantic scale of his naval 
preparations, showed very clearly the intentions of the new 
ruler of France. Europe at first looked on puzzled and 
amazed. That France should become powerful, a European 
leader under such a man as Louis Napoleon, was deemed 
an impossible thing. 

But as proofs of consummate ability in the guidance of 
French affairs began to multiply, and her military and 
naval power assumed grander proportions, as immense 
navy yards and fortifications began to menace the coast of 
Britain, English statesmen, in view of the past, had good 
reason for anxiety, if not for alarm. 

It certainly was quite possible that France was preparing 



86 CONDITION OF ENGLAND, FRANCE, RUSSIA AND AMERICA, 

to avenge herself for the humiliations of centuries. It was 
certain that a Bonaparte was on her throne, an ardent 
admirer of that uncle who had made the conquest or 
humbling of England one of the chief purposes of his life, 
and that uncle had not only been defeated by England, but 
she had mercilessly chained him to a rock, and shutting out 
all succor, left him there to die. 

France had not forgotten, much less had the nephew for- 
gotten or forgiven. Now that nephew wielded the power 
of France, his army was superior to any thing which England 
could command, and her navy was only the second in the 
world. "Well might Englishmen inquire, how will this 
power be used ? What purpose has this new Bonaparte in 
these vast preparations? "What can he intend, unless to 
carry out the policy of his uncle in the invasion of England, 
and to revenge France and his family for national defeat, 
and especially for St. Helena and "Waterloo. Those who 
remember the tone of the English Press at this period, know 
well how deeply the English nation was moved, even alarmed 
at the menacing attitude of France, from whom came no 
threatening word, but whose sphynx-like mystery was a 
source of terror, while especially at her great naval stations 
opposite England, the hum of preparation continually 
sounded. 

What could this warlike activity mean, unless a sudden 
attack upon England was meditated ? Between France and 
all other powers there seemed no cause for war. But the 
preparations and growing power of France were not the 
only causes which created uneasiness in England. Her 
supremacy had become a commercial rather than a military 
one, notwithstanding the immense strength of her navy, 
and it was necessary for her if she would rule the world, to 
retain her markets, to prevent, if possible, the growth of 
commercial rivals, and to secure the colonial possessions 
which she had wrested from others. As she surveyed the 
world, an eastern and a western vision troubled her. 
Hitherto Russia had been regarded as a mere military, 
barbarian Colossus, whose joints were not well compacted, 



"WHEN THE ANGLO-FRENCH ALLIANCE WAS FORMED. 87 

composed of heterogeneous materials, that could not be 
united in one true, organic, political structure, with a com- 
mon life, which would insure a regular and healthy growth. 

But Russia, under Nicholas, began to give signs that she 
was more than a mere barbarian camp, more than a nation 
of serfs and wandering Tartars. She gave evidence of a 
true national life, of enlargement, which was growth from 
a national life centre. Under many disadvantages the Rus- 
sian Emperor was striving to give his country the means 
of independent self-development, and was laboring to estab- 
lish manufactures and internal commerce, and to make 
profitable use of the great resources of his empire. He was 
establishing schools for his people, literary, and agricultural, 
as well as military, opening roads, projecting railways and 
canals, and putting steamboats upon his numerous rivers. 

He was improving his navy and his mercantile marine, 
and in all his operations he seemed to prefer American 
mechanics, and American machinery, a fact which, of course, 
did not escape the watchful eye of England. 

He had constructed a large fleet upon the Black Sea, and 
its fortified rendezvous, Sebastopol, was only a few hours 
sail from Constantinople ; Turkey, unless defended by other 
powers, was apparently within reach of the Czar, and once 
in possession of Constantinople, Russia would have the 
means not only of becoming a great military power, but 
she would certainly be a first class manufacturing and com- 
mercial nation. 

Russia, moreover, had already extended the outposts of 
dominion far on eastward, from the Black Sea along the 
Caucasus, and the northern frontier of Persia, and England 
saw, that if Turkey were overgrown, even the peaceful 
march of Russia eastward, would bring her at no distant 
date to the borders of her Indian possessions. The English 
Press at this time was complaining, as if it were ill-treat- 
ment of Great Britain and Europe, that Russia was planting 
vineyards in the Crimea with the intention of making her 
own wine, and that she was multiplying her flocks of sheep 
for the purpose of manufacturing her own woolens, and 



88 CONDITION OF ENGLAND, FRANCE, RUSSIA AND AMERICA, 

that in general, she was disposed to cherish and protect her 
own workmen, and develop her own resources, instead of 
following those free-trade doctrines, which England was 
then proclaiming to the world. 

It was apparent that by this course, Russia in time would 
not only manufacture to supply the wants of her own people, 
and to this extent curtail the foreign markets for English 
goods, but with her boundless mineral wealth, her great 
facilities for internal trade by her navigable rivers, with the 
control of the Black Sea, with Constantinople, and access 
to the Mediterranean, she might become in all respects a 
very formidable rival of both England and France. 

Russia proposed to sweep from her path that usurping 
infidel power which had crushed her mother church, con- 
quered her holy City Constantinople, and held in bondage 
eleven millions of Christians of her own communion ; but 
Bhe meditated no attack upon any European Power, she 
relied for progress upon the normal development of her own 
national life. Her crime was, in the opinion of France and 
England, that she was growing too fast. As Englishmen 
have lately expressed themselves in regard to our own 
nation, Russia was growing so strong that measures had to 
be taken to cripple her, " to take her down." She had done 
no wrong at that time to provoke or justify an attack, but 
she was too prosperous to suit the interest of England, and 
hence the Alliance and the Crimean war. 

At the same time, England saw in the West a rising 
Empire, whose marvellous growth gave her more anxiety 
than even the progress of Russia. 

The population of the United States was almost equal to 
her own. The Americans had just obtained California and 
the Pacific coast, Texas had been annexed, Mexico seemed 
ready to fall into their hands, and their commercial marine 
was even then second to none in the world. 

In spite of inadequate protection, and the combined 
influence of the slave States and England, American manu- 
factures were making rapid progress in many departments, 
American mechanics were already ahead of the world — and 



WHEN THE ANGLO-FRENCH ALLIANCE WAS FORMED. 89 

in all the markets of the United States, British fabrics were J 
being rapidly displaced by the products of American skill. 
English statesmen knew well, that a people that could create 
for themselves an unmatched fleet for commercial purposes, 
that had covered their rivers and lakes with swift steam- 
boats, could also produce a navy with equal ease whenever 
it should be needed, and with resources of all kinds to which 
man could assign no limit, fronting on two great oceans, 
what could prevent the United States from overshadowing 
even England with her greatness, unless indeed, as was said 
to Mr. Beecher, she could "be taken down." 

The colonies of England on the North were too weak to 
resist their powerful neighbors, and her West Indian islands 
were in dangerous proximity to those harbors whence 
American fleets might issue, and the restless filibustering 
of the slave-holders coveting new lands, was an indication 
of what might be done if expeditions should be fitted out 
with the sanction, and supported by the power of the 
Government. England saw and dreaded the threatening 
preparations of France; Russia was swiftly rising in the 
East, and America was overshadowing the West. 

It is easy to see, therefore, that Great Britain had been 
urged by what appeared very pressing reasons, to accept 
an Alliance which promised relief from a triple danger, an 
attack from France, and the too great prosperity of Russia 
and America. 

The motives by which the French Emperor was induced 
to seek the Alliance with England were of a more complex 
character. France feared no attack from England, and the 
commercial idea swayed her because commercial greatness 
had become the foundation of political power, but French 
policy was also influenced by other reasons of nearly equal 
weight. Louis Napoleon and his associates, " the Brethren 
of the Elysee," as Mr. Kinglake calls them, had with the 
aid of the army seized upon France, and with the slaughter 
of innocent thousands in the streets of Paris, the banish- 
ment of other thousands that they might die in Cayenne, 
and the imprisonment of multitudes beside, had crushed 



90 CONDITION OF ENGLAND, FRANCE, RUSSIA AND AMERICA, 

out of her the power of resistance, and held her helpless in 
their bloody grasp. They styled themselves a government, 
the French Government, and Louis Napoleon declared him- 
self an Emperor, the Emperor of France. He desired as a 
first necessity, recognition of his claims, and respect for the 
Empire thus created, as it was, in one day of slaughter. 

If he could succeed in obtaining this recognition from 
England, it would have a double value, because she was not 
only the foremost State of Europe, but she was the ancient 
enemy of France. This was his first object, and this was 
easily gained, or if not easily, it certainly was quickly done. 

But this, however important, was only one step towards 
an ultimate end. If what has been previously stated in 
regard to the traditional policy of France is received as 
correct, if one remembers that the leading purpose of the 
first Napoleon was the establishment of a European Latin 
Empire, with France at the head of the Empire and the 
Papal church, and that Louis Napoleon has devoted himself 
to the carrying out of the unfinished schemes of his uncle, 
then a clear light will be shed on the Alliance, the Crimean 
war, his hostility to the United States, and his invasion of 
Mexico. 

If it is conceded that his design was to make France 
supreme in Europe, and to unite under her the Latin race, 
and restore over the world the lost " strength and prestige" 
of the Papal church, then it was necessary to accomplish 
these designs, — to crush England or make her his ally and 
tool, for a time, and then when strong enough, compel her 
to serve him, or risk destruction, to arrest the progress of 
the Greek church and Russia in the East, and to prevent 
the further growth of the United States, which was sup- 
planting the political power of the Latin and the Catholic 
church in the West. 

If such a supposition seems to invest Louis Napoleon 
with a greatness to which he has no proper claims, let it be 
remembered, that if he is not equal to the forming of such 
a vast design, that he has advisers within the Papal church, 
whose sagacity and ambition are quite sufficient to originate 



WHEN THE ANGLO-FRENCH ALLIANCE WAS FORMED. 91 

such a scheme, and that it lies, moreover, along the familiar 
line of thought of every able Jesuit in Europe or America. 

In attempting to carry out so vast a plan, it was, of course, 
necessary, first of all, to make some safe disposition of Eng- 
land. Two methods were open to the choice of the Em- 
peror. He might attack her with a superior army, and 
with a navy nearly equal in efficiency, but, to say the least, 
this would be a hazardous attempt, and Louis Napoleon 
might well hesitate at what his uncle had shrunk from when 
at the height of his power. Or he might propose to her an 
alliance, under cover of which, and even by the assistance 
of England, France might increase her strength, and per- 
haps assume the position of leader. 

He chose this latter course, as not only safer, but as 
ottering the fairest prospect of ultimate success. But how 
could he approach England with such a proposition ? 
How detach her from her ancient friendships and link her 
to the fortunes of her most bitter foe? The bait was 
cunningly contrived — England, for reasons already stated, 
feared the growing power of Russia. It was her traditional 
policy to hinder her growth, and counteract the plots of the 
Czar that looked towards Constantinople and the East- 
She watched with jealous care each movement of Russia 
which appeared to threaten Turkey or the Mediterranean. 
France, on the contrary, had adopted no such steadfast and 
clearly defined policy in regard to " The Eastern Question." 
Her position at this time is thus stated by Mr. Kinglake : 

"Among the very foremost of the Great Powers of Europe 
was France ; and she was well entitled, if her rulers should 
so think fit, to use her strength against any potentate threat- 
ening to alter the great territorial arrangements of Europe ; 
and especially it was her right to withstand any changes 
which she might regard as menacing to her power in the 
Mediterranean. But French statesmen have generally 
thought that, as the Mediterranean after all is only a part 
of the ocean, a new maritime power in the Levant might 
be rather a convenient ally against England, than a dan- 



92 CONDITION OF ENGLAND, FRANCE, RUSSIA AND AMERICA, 

gerous rival to France ; and, upon the whole, it was difficult 
to make out, either from the nature of things or from the 
general course of her policy, that France had any deep in- 
terest in the integrity of the Sultan's dominions. At all 
events, her interest was not of so cogent a sort as to oblige 
her to stand more forward than any of the other great 
Powers, or to bear in any greater proportion than they 
might do, the charge of keeping the Ottoman Empire un- 
touched. Indeed, it was hard at that time to infer from 
the past acts of France that she had any settled policy 
upon the Eastern Question. She had clung with some 
steadiness to the idea of establishing French influence in 
Syria ; and from time to time during the last half century 
she had been inclined to entangle herself in Egypt ; but 
upon the question whether the elements constituting the 
Ottoman Empire should be kept together, she had gener- 
ally seemed to be undecided ; for, although she took part 
in the conservative arrangements of 1841, her conduct in 
the previous year, and at several other times of crisis, had 
disclosed no great reluctance on her part to see the empire 
dismembered. Upon the supposition, however, that she in- 
tended to pursue the policy which she afterward avowed, 
and to concur in the endeavor to maintain the Sultan's 
dominions, her duty toward herself and to Europe required 
that she should herself refrain from disturbing the quiet of 
the East ; and that in the event of any wrongful aggression 
by Russia upon the dominions of the Sultan, she should 
loyally range herself with such of the four great Powers as 
might be willing to check the encroachment by their 
authority, or, in last resort, by force of arms ; but it was 
not at all incumbent upon France to place herself in the 
van ; and it was not consistent with the welfare of her 
people that she should take upon herself a share of the 
European burden disproportionate to her interest in the 
state of Eastern Europe. Nor was there at this time any 
reason to imagine that the country could be brought into 
strife, or engaged in warlike enterprises without sufficient 
cause ; for the institutions of France had not then shriveled 



WHEN THE ANGLO-FRENCH ALLIANCE WAS FORMED. 93 

up into a system which subordinated the vast interests of 
the State to the mere safety and welfare of its ruler. The 
legislative power and the control of the supplies were in 
the hands of an Assembly freely elected ; and both in the 
Chamber and in print, men enjoyed the right of free 
speech. Also the executive power rested lawfully in the 
hands of ministers responsible to Parliament ; and there- 
fore, although the President, as will be seen, could do acts 
leading to mischief and danger, he could not bring France 
to a rupture with a foreign State unless war were really 
demanded by the interests or by the honor, or at least by 
the passions of the country. And, the people being peace- 
fully inclined, and the interests and the honor of the 
country being carefully respected by all foreign States, 
France was not at that time a source of disturbance to 
Europe." 

But for the purpose of winning England, and binding 
her to the fortunes of his throne by solemn contract, the 
Emperor adopted suddenly an Eastern policy suited to the 
English market. lie first of all placed himself in an atti- 
tude of incipient hostility towards Russia, and when the 
wiles of his Jesuits had provoked the Russian Emperor, 
and induced him to threaten Turkey, he at once turned to 
England as an ardent convert to her Eastern policy, and 
offered to unite with her in checking the ambition of 
Russia. Mr. Kinglake has set forth this diplomatic man- 
oeuvre in the following passage : 

"At length, nay so early as the 28th of January, 1853, 
the French Emperor perceived that his measures had 
effectually aroused the Czar's hostility to the Sultan, and 
he instantly proposed to England that the two Powers 
should act together in extinguishing the flames which he 
himself had just kindled, and should endeavor to come to 
a joint understanding, with a view to resist the ambition of 
Russia. Knowing beforehand what the policy of England 
was, he all at once adopted it, and proposed it to our 



94 CONDITION OF ENGLAND, FRANCE, RUSSIA AND AMERICA, 

Government in the very terms always used by English 
statesmen. He took, as it were, an ' old copy' of the first 
English speech from the throne which came to his hand, 
and following its words, declared that the first object 
should be to * preserve the integrity of the Ottoman Em- 
pire.'* From that moment until the summer of 1855, and 
perhaps even down to a still later period, he did not once 
swerve from the great scheme of forming and maintaining 
an offensive alliance with England against the Czar, and to 
that object he subordinated all other considerations. He 
had at that time the rare gift of being able to keep him- 
self alive to the proportionate value of political objects. 
He knew how to give up the less for the sake of attaining 
and keeping the greater. Governed by this principle, he 
gradually began to draw closer and closer toward England ; 
and when the angry Czar imagined that he was advancing 
in the cause of his Church against a resolute champion of 
the Latins, his wily adversary was smiling perhaps with 
Lord Cowley about the ' key' and the ' cupola,' and prepar- 
ing to form an alliance on strictly temporal grounds. 

" It would have been well for Europe if the exigencies 
of the persons then wielding the destinies of France would 
have permitted the State to rest content witli that honest 
share of duty which fell to the lot of each of the four 
Powers when the intended occupation of the Principalities 
was announced. Neither the interest nor the honor of 
France required that in the Eastern question she should 
stand more forward than any other of the remonstrant 
States ; but the personal interest of the new Emperor and 
his December friends did not at all coincide with the 
interest of France ; for what he and his associates wanted, 
and what in truth they really needed, was to thrust France 
into a conflict, which might be either diplomatic or warlike, 
but which was at all events to be of a conspicuous sort, 
tending to ward off the peril of home politics, and give to 
the fabric of the 2nd of December something like station 

*' Eastern Papers,' part i., page 68. 



WHEN THE ANGLO-FRENCH ALLIANCE WAS FORMED. 95 

and celebrity in Europe. In order to achieve this, it clearly 
would not suffice for France to be merely one of a conference 
of four great Powers quietly and temperately engaged in 
repressing the encroachments of the Czar. Her part in such 
a business could not possibly be so prominent, nor so ani- 
mating as to draw away the attention of the French from 
the persons who had got into their palaces and their offices 
of State. On the other baud, a close, separate, and signifi- 
cant alliance with England, and with England alone, to the 
exclusion of the rest of the four Powers, would not only 
bring about the conflict which was needed for the safety 
and comfort of the Tuileries, but would seem in the eyes of 
the mistaken world to give the sanction of the Queen's 
pure name to the acts of the December night and the Thurs- 
day the day of blood. The unspeakable value of this moral 
shelter to persons in the condition of the new French Mon- 
arch, and St. Arnaud, Morny, and Maupas, can never be 
understood except by those who look back and remember 
how exalted the moral station of England was in the period 
which elapsed between the 10th of April, 1848, and the 
time when she suffered herself to become entangled in 
engagements wuth the French Emperor. 

"It would have been right enough that France and Eng- 
land, as the two great maritime Powers, should have come 
to an understanding with each other in regard to the dis- 
position of their fleets ; but, even if they had been concert- 
ing for only that limited purpose, it would have been right 
that the general tenor and object of their naval arrange- 
ments should have received the antecedent approval of the 
two other Powers with whom they were in cordial agree- 
ment. The English Government, however, not only con- 
sented to engage in naval movements which affected — nay, 
actually governed — the question of peace or war, but fell 
into the error of concerting these movements with France 
alone, and doing this — not because of any difference which 
had arisen between the four Powers, but — simply because 
France and England were provided with ships ; so that in 
truth the Western Powers, merely because they were pos- 



96 CONDITION OF ENGLAND, FRANCE, RUSSIA AND AMERICA, 

sessed of the implement which enabled them to put a pres- 
sure upon the Czar, resolved to act as though they were 
the only judges of the question whether the pressure should 
be applied or not; and this at a time when, as Lord Clar- 
endon declared in Parliament, the four Powers were ' all 
acting cordially together.' Of course, this wanton segrega- 
tion tended to supersede or dissolve the concord which 
bound the four Powers, and, as a sure consequence, to 
endanger yet more than ever the cause of peace. Some 
strange blindness prevented Lord Aberdeen from seeing the 
path he trod, or rather prevented him from seeing with a 
clearness conducive to action. But what the French Em- 
peror wanted was even more than this, and what he wanted 
was done. It is true that neither admiration nor moral 
disapproval of the conduct of princes ought to have any 
exceeding sway over our relations with foreign States, and 
if we had had the misfortune to find that the Emperor of 
the French was the only potentate in Europe whose policy 
was in accord with our own, it might have been right that 
closer relations of alliance with France (however humiliat- 
ing they might seem in the eyes of the moralist) should 
have followed our separation from the other States of 
Europe. But no such separation had occurred. What 
the French Emperor ventured to attempt, and what he 
actually succeeded in achieving, was to draw England into 
a distinct and separate alliance with himself — not at a time 
when she was isolated, but — at a moment when she was in 
close accord with the rest of the four Powers." 

England was thus gained for France. It was the most 
momentous step in her history since the Reformation, and 
the full results cannot be foreseen as yet. For reasons 
which, as Mr. Kinglake saj^s, have never yet been satisfac- 
torily explained, she separated herself secretly from Austria 
and Prussia, and, with no necessity laid upon her by the 
state of the negotiations with Russia and Turkey, joined 
France in a crusade against Russia. 

The reasons, says her historian, have not been revealed. 



WHEN THE ANGLO-FRENCH ALLIANCE WAS FORMED. 97 

Recent events in connection with our own country are now 
throwing back a clear light upon the reasons for the Anglo 
French Alliance, which at the time were only hinted at in 
sentences falling from English statesmen, and which appeared 
like enigmas when uttered — such as "the Alliance has refer- 
ence to Western as well as Eastern affairs." We know too 
well now the meaning of those declarations. 

England had been placed in safe position. France might 
now push her military preparation to any extent, and Eng- 
land could not complain. She could increase her navy till 
it should be a match for that of Britain, and it would merely 
be to prepare to execute her part of the contract. She 
could pursue her schemes for supremacy in any direction, 
and depend upon the powerful aid of England. England 
having been thus secured, the next step in the grand con- 
spiracy against the nations would naturally be to use the 
power of Great Britain in an attempt to cripple the military 
strength of Russia, and check the progress of the Greek 
Church, and restore in the East the lost prestige and power 
of the Papal Church, precisely as Prance now proposes to 
do in Mexico and throughout this Western Continent. It 
need not be supposed that Louis Napoleon, or his political 
associates, have any special regard for any church or any 
religion, but it is through the church alone that the reload- 
ing of the Latin nations under one imperial crown can be 
effected. Their history, their former glory, their religious 
sentiments, hopes and fears, their traditions and super- 
stitions, are all bound up with the Papal Church. 

There can be no restoration of empire for them, without 
restoring at the same time the supremacy of the Roman 
Catholic Church. Without the church, the ambitious 
scheme of the two Napoleons could never be successful, and 
therefore it is that in every movement of France, the church 
and the empire are inseparably connected. While, there- 
fore, the Emperor presented to England such political and 
commercial considerations as he thought would move her, 
it was at the same time carefully arranged that the opening 
contest with Russia should have a religious character — 
7 



98 CONDITION OF ENGLAND, FRANCE, RUSSIA AND AMERICA, 

should be, in fact, a renewal of the struggle of ages between 
the Eastern and Western churches, the Latin and the 
Greek; a conflict which had so often shaken all Chiisten- 
dom, and crimsoned the East and the West with blood. 

So it was understood by the Czar and the Russian people, 
and so, also, it was understood by the present leaders of the 
Papal Church. Mr. Kinglake has this remark: "When 
"the angry Czar imagined that he was advancing in the 
" cause of his Church against a resolute champion of the 
" Latins, his wily adversary was smiling perhaps with Lord 
" Cowley about the ' key,' and the ' cupola,' and proposing 
" to form an alliance on strictly temporal grounds." Events 
have shown that Mr. Kinglake was mistaken ; or, if he is 
right in his conjecture, then neither Lord Derby nor Louis 
Napoleon understood the full meaning of their own acts. 
There were deeper grounds of quarrel than any mere tem- 
poral interest. Beneath all else, was the undying, unresting 
ambition of the Papal Church and its Jesuit leaders. 

Other considerations doubtless influenced Louis Napoleon. 
He knew that in the expedition which he was projecting 
in the Crimea, there would be no great opportunity for the 
English navy to win renown, and he rightly believed that 
the French army was superior to that of Britain. If, there- 
fore, the joint effort should prove successful against Russia, 
the French Emperor might hope that France would win 
the principal glory, and be recognized once more as the 
great military power of Europe. All now know that this 
was the actual result. England came out of the contest 
with her glory dimmed, her influence diminished, her mili- 
tary weakness unveiled, and France was in the ascendant. 
Such was the general condition of the four great powers 
particularly affected by the Anglo French Alliance, at the 
time when it was formed, and it seems not very diflicult to 
understand the motives in which it originated, or the pur- 
poses of the contracting parties. England was glad to 
exchange the old French enemy that she dreaded into a 
new French friend, and then, as the Times declared, the 
two Powers being strong enough to control the world, 



WHEN THE ANGLO-FRENCH ALLIANCE WAS FORMED. 99 

England could use this allied strength, first, to humble 
and cripple Russia, and then give such attention to the 
rising empire of the West as should prevent us also from 
growing too strong. 

Intimations of this kind fell from English statesmen, and 
the Times' oracle and the Quarterlies echoed their senti- 
ments. The following are examples : 

" The Alliance with France does not regard the East 
exclusively, but has reference to affairs in both hemi- 
spheres."* 

" Our transatlantic cousins will become a trifle less inso- 
lent and overbearing, when they find that the fleet which 
* summers' in the Baltic can, without cost or effort, ' winter' 
in the Gulf of Mexico, and our statesmen will not again 
need to speak with 'bated breath' in the cause of humanity 
and justice, from a dread lest the spirit of the country will 
not, or the energies of the country can not, bear them out 
in assuming a loftier tone."f 

" When Russia is settled, France may safely abate her 
army, and England her navy, but neither must disarm. If 
they do, not only will other Powers cease to respect them, 
but they will cease to respect each other. We must still be 
able to say l No' to our lively young brother across the Atlantic, 
if he wants Cuba without paying for it, or takes any other little 
vagary into his head."% 

"England and France together are strong enough to 
bind nearly all the world over to keep the peace."|| 

There seemed to be a general English wish, that when 

♦Sentiment expressed by Lord Clarendon, and indorsed in France. 
(• North British Review, November 1854,written when England thought Sebas- 
topol had already fallen, or might be regarded as captured. 
% Blaclcioood, November, 1854. 
t Blackwood, November, 1854. 



100 CONDITION OF ENGLAND, FKANCE, RUSSIA AND AMERICA. 

"Russia was settled" attention should be given to the 
United States, and a general expectation that it would be 
done — that, in some form, France and England would in- 
terpose and humble the pride of the Great Republic. On 
the part of England the Alliance was formed, first, to 
secure herself, at least for a time, against France, then, if 
possible, to crush or hinder her two rising commercial and 
manufacturing rivals, Russia and the United States; and 
when the secret notes and conversations of the time shall 
come to light it will be revealed that, in its original con- 
ception, this contract was an Alliance both against Russia 
and America, with the intention as definite and real, of 
attacking in some form the United States, as was the plan 
of war against Russia. 

The occasion of our rebellion was eagerly seized as the fit 
instrument for our destruction, and every step of England 
and France has been taken to carry out the spirit and in- 
tention of the original Alliance. France, as has been 
stated, was operating upon a wider plan, and with a deeper 
purpose. Her scheme was one of universal empire, with 
the prestige of the Latin race and church restored both 
east and west. This was in sympathy with English policy, 
so far as it went, but sne had also a grander ambition of 
her own. 

When France attacked Russia, it was not simply one 
State against another, it was the Western Latin Church 
striking once more for the supremacy of the world. When, 
subsequently, Louis Napoleon attacked Austria, it was not 
to free Italy, as Italy since has learned, but to place France 
instead of Austria at the head of Catholic Europe. 

The French Emperor, with his troops guarding the 
Pope at Rome, is again the " eldest son of the Church." 
On this eldest son the Papal power now rests its hope, and 
the movement upon Mexico is simply another step in the 
scheme of recovering the lost power of the Latin race 
under the lead of France, and to restore on this continent 
the supremacy of the Papal Church by crippling a free 
Protestant Republic. 



THE CRIMEAN WAR — IT WAS BEGUN BY FRANCE. 101 



CHAPTER IX. 



THE CRIMEAN WAR.— IT WAS BEGUN BY FRANCE.— IT WAS IN ITS ORIGIN A 
RELIGIOUS WAR, AN ATTEMPT OF THE PAPACY TO REGAIN ITS ASCEND- 
ANCY IN THE EAST OVER THE GREEK CHURCH. 



Americans cannot fully understand the motives which 
have governed England and France since the outbreak of 
the rebellion without studying the nature and purposes of 
the war against Russia in the Crimea. That war was the 
first part of a plan, of which the other was to cripple the 
United States either by State craft or by arms, whenever 
the opportunity should come after Russia was " settled." 

The general principles and purposes which originated the 
w r ar against Russia were the same which have guided these 
allied Powers in their hostility to the American Republic. 
The United States in the West occupied the same position 
as Russia in the East, and Mexico is the western Turkey 
to be sustained or occupied against our growing power. 
England looked at it then as now, from the commercial 
stand-point, fearing a rival in the West as in the East, 
while the object of the Papal leaders who urged France 
into hostilities, was to restore in the East the strength and 
prestige of the Roman Church, as they now propose to do 
the same thing in the West by a French occupation of 
Mexico, and as much more of the American continent as 
circumstances may allow. 

For the same reason that the Allies interfered to prevent 
Russia from opening an eastern route to India by way of 
the Black Sea, the Caspian and the Aral, do they now pro- 



102 THE CRIMEAN WAR — IT WAS BEGUN BY FRANCE. 

pose to block up our American western road to Asia ; and 
the same policy which causes the reopening of the ship 
canal across the Isthmus of Suez has also planned the 
French ship canal across our American Isthmus, and made 
surveys and maps, not only of Central America and Mexico, 
but of our whole Pacific coast. The plan of the Allies in 
the East was the exact counterpart of their plot against 
the United States, a plot which the rebellion has only in 
part revealed. 

The Crimean war, then, should be carefully studied by 
Americans, in order to understand the real motives by 
which France and England are governed. 

During the progress of the siege of Sebastopol, the 
author of this work wrote as follows in reference to the 
attack upon Russia, and the quotation is made for the pur- 
pose of showing how events have justified the warning, 
and to convince Americans that the views then set forth 
were correct, and that the dangers pointed out were real. 

"The interest of the United States in this struggle is 
second only to that of Russia, and to a great degree is evi- 
dently identical with hers. ' When Russia is settled,' what 
remains but to settle the United States also, inasmuch, as 
the North British suggests, the Allied fleets can spend their 
summers in the Baltic and their winters with us. Let 
those whose sympathies have flowed so freely for the Allies 
consider the tremendous stake which our country has in 
this contest. It is quite natural, and entirely right, that 
American Christians should cultivate the most friendly 
feeling with our fellow Christians in England, and that we 
should be grateful for the kindness with which her public 
servants have regarded our missionary efforts in Turkey, 
and that we should feel a deep interest in her as our mother 
country and as a Protestant nation, and it would be an act 
not only of folly but of wickedness to excite against her a 
causeless hostility. 

"But it would manifest still greater infatuation if we 
should suffer these things to mislead us in regard to the 



IT WAS IN ITS ORIGIN A RELIGIOUS WAR. 103 

actual character of this war, or close our eyes to the mani- 
fest designs of the Allies, or fail to perceive the selfish, 
arrogant spirit that rules their policy. Let Americans be 
careful, lest by a misplaced sympathy they not only sustain 
a wrong, but endanger their own country. 

"It was natural that Americans, in the beginning of this 
conflict, should cheer on France and England with their 
sympathies and their prayers, for then it appeared to be 
what they so loudly declared it was, a war of freedom 
against despotism, of civilization against barbarism ; and it 
was expected that the yoke of enslaved nations would be 
broken. But can it be expected that Americans should 
still feel deeply interested in their success when it is so 
clearly shown by testimony and by actions, that this assault 
upon Russia has been prompted by no generous motive 
whatever, by no hatred of despotism, no desire for the deliv- 
erance of the oppressed, no kind regard even for tottering 
Turkey — but simply with the unrighteous design of check- 
ing the growth and hindering the prosperity of a neighbor- 
ing nation, which might dispute with them their commercial 
supremacy, mingled, on the part of France, with the per- 
sonal ambition and personal pique of her sovereign, and 
the intention of restoring supremacy to the Catholic Church; 
and when, moreover, it is virtually declared that so soon as 
Russia is ' settled,' the affairs of the western hemisphere 
will receive attention. 

" The fact will not much longer be concealed from the 
world, that the true question involved in this war is whether 
France and England shall be the joint dictators of the w r orld, 
domineering over all oceans with their navies, and prescrib- 
ing limits to the growth of nations; whether they shall be 
permitted to say to Russia, ' You shall advance no further 
eastward,' or to the United States, ' You shall neither have 
the Sandwich Islands, nor Cuba, nor Mexico, and you, and 
all other Powers, shall dwell within the limits which we 
think proper to allow.' This is the real significance of the 
Eastern war, to which tbe United States will do well to 
give heed in time. 



104 THE CRIMEAN WAR — IT WAS BEGUN BY FRANCE. 

" It becomes us to consider in due season whether we are 
prepared to submit to such dictation, or whether we shall 
claim and exercise, at all hazards, the right of unrestricted 
development. The batteries of Cronstadt and Sebastopol 
are ranged in front of American as well as Russian rights, 
and the interest of the United States in the preservation 
of the Russian navy is second only to that of Russia her- 
self. The last war for American independence is yet to 
come, if Russia can be humbled. 

The United States and Russia sustain almost precisely 
the same general relations to France ahd England, and to 
the main objects of their Alliance. Both are animated by 
a vigorous life, seeking on all sides room for its expansion. 
Both are already formidable, and promise an overshadow- 
ing greatness in the future. Both are seeking commercial 
and manufacturing importance, and threaten to rival older 
States. Each is advancing at a rate unknown to other 
nations. 

" Both are regarded with intense hostility hy the Papal 
Church, and her priests and Jesuits are equally laboring for 
the overthrow of each. Both are seeking to secure for 
themselves a share of the commerce of the East, and meet 
alike the opposition of France and England. Both are 
seeking for themselves a theater of national life outside of 
the sphere of Western Europe, and Western Europe inter- 
feres with both. Both claim the right of making an ex- 
periment for themselves in a civilization of their own, and 
have been met, each in its turn, not only with sneers, but 
hostility ; and both stand confronted by the Anglo-French 
Alliance — the one in the Baltic and at Sebastopol, the other 
in the Gulf of Mexico, in the Sandwich Islands, and in 
Central America, ready to say ' No' to our progress when 
' Russia is settled.' " 

These were not vain words, as subsequent events have 
shown, and the author, with the consent of the publishers, 
has made free use of such other portions of the work from 
which this was taken as seem suited to his present purpose; 



IT WAS IN ITS ORIGIN A RELIGIOUS WAR. 105 

and it is but justice to himself to state that the main thoughts 
setting forth the origin and purpose of the Crimean war were 
first written out and published some ten years ago, and while 
the war was in actual progress. Were it not for this state- 
ment, it might appear that they had merely been borrowed 
from later writers, especially from Mr. Kinglake, whose recent 
statement of the origin of the Crimean War is here pre- 
sented as a complete justification of what the author of this 
book wrote and published nearly ten years ago. ]STo other 
apology is needed for quoting nearly the entire chapter 
from Mr Kinglake than this. He wrote with every poss : ble 
advantage for knowing the truth ; his is the very latest 
w T ork upon the subject, and its authority is not to be suc- 
cessfully disputed upon these points, and he sustains in full, 
the general view taken in this book of the origin of the 
war. 



106 HOLT SHRINES. 



CHAPTER X 



HOLY SHKINES. 



"The mystery of holy shrines lies deep in human nature. 
For, however the more spiritual minds may be able to rise 
and soar, the common man during his mortal career is 
tethered to the globe that is his appointed dwelling-place ; 
and the more his affections are pure and holy, the more 
they seem to blend with the outward and visible world. 
Poets bringing the gifts of mind to bear upon human feel- 
ings have surrounded the image of love with myriads of 
their dazzling fancies, but it has been said that in every 
country, when a peasant speaks of his deep love, he always 
says the same thing. He always utters the dear name, and 
then only says that he ' worships the ground she treads.' 
It seems that where she who holds the spell of his life onco 
touched the earth — where the hills and wooded glen and 
the pebbty banks of the stream have in them the enchant- 
ing quality that they were seen by him and by her when 
they were together — there always his memory will cling ; 
and it is in vain that space intervenes, for imagination 
transcendent and strong of flight can waft him from lands 
far away until he lights upon the very path by the river's 
bank which was blessed by her gracious step. Nay, dis- 
tance will inflame his fancy ; for if he be cut off from the 
sacred ground by the breadth of the ocean, or by vast end- 
less desolate tracts, he comes to know that deep in his 
bosom there lies a secret desire to journey and journey far, 



HOLY SHRINES. 107 

that he may touch with fond lips some mere ledge of rock 
where once he saw her foot resting. It seems that the im- 
pulse does not spring from any designed culture of senti- 
ment, but from an honest earthly passion vouchsafed to the 
unlettered and the simple-hearted, and giving them strength 
to pass the mystic border which lies between love and wor- 
ship. For men strongly moved by the Christian faith it 
was natural to yearn after the scenes of the Gospel narra- 
tive. In old times this feeling had strength to impel the 
chivalry of Europe to undertake the conquest of a barren 
and distant land ; and, although in later days the aggregate 
faith of the nations grew chill, and Christendom no longer 
claimed with the sword, still there were always many who 
were willing to brave toil and danger for the sake of attain- 
ing to the actual and visible Sion. These venturesome men 
came to be called Pelerins or Pilgrims. At first, as it would 
seem, they were impelled by deep feeling acting upon bold 
and resolute natures. Holding close to the faith that the 
Son of God, being also in mystic sense the great God him- 
self, had for our sakes and for our salvation become a babe, 
growing up to be an anxious and suffering man, and sub- 
mitting to be cruelly tortured and killed by the hands of 
his own creatures, they longed to touch and to kiss the 
spots which were believed to be the silent witnesses of his 
life upon earth, and of his cross and passion. And, since 
also these men were of the Churches which sanctioned the 
adoration of the Virgin, they were taught alike, by their 
conception of duty and by nature's low whispering voice, 
to touch and kiss the holy ground where Mary, pure and 
young, was ordained to become the link between God and 
the race of fallen man. And, because the rocky land 
abounded in recesses and caves yielding shelter against sun 
and rain, it was possible for the Churches to declare, and 
very easy for trustful men to believe, that a hollow in a 
rock at Bethlehem was the manger which held the infant 
Redeemer, and that a grotto at Nazareth was the very home 
of the blessed Virgin. 

" Priests fastened upon this sentiment, and although in 



108 HOLY SHRINES, 

its beginning their design was not sordid, they found them- 
selves driven by the course of events to convert the allur- 
ing mystery of the Holy Places into a source of revenue. 
The Mahometan invaders had become by conquest the lords 
of the ground ; but, since their own creed laid great stress 
upon the virtue of pilgrimage to holy shrines, they willingly 
entered into the feelings of the Christians who came to 
kneel in Palestine. Moreover, they respected the self-denial 
of monks, and it was found that even in turbulent times a 
convent in Palestine surrounded by a good wall, and headed 
by a clevor Superior, could generally hold its own. It was 
to establishments of this kind that the pilgrim looked for 
aid and hospitality, and in order to keep them up the priests 
imagined the plan of causing the votary to pay according 
to his means at every shrine which he embraced. Upon 
the understanding that he fulfilled that condition he was 
led to believe that he won unspeakable privileges in the 
world to come, and thenceforth a pilgrimage to the holy 
shrines ceased to be an expression of enthusiastic senti- 
ment, and became a common act of devotion. 

"But, since it happened that, because of the manner in 
which the toll was levied, every one of the holy places was 
a distinct source of revenue, the prerogative of the Turks as 
owners of the ground was necessarily brought into play, 
and it rested with them to determine which of the rival 
Churches should have the control and usufruct of every 
holy shrine. Here, then, was a subject of lasting strife. So 
long as the Ottoman Empire was in its full strength, the 
authorities at Constantinople were governed in their deci- 
sions by the common appliances of intrigue, and most 
chiefly, no doubt, by gold ; but when the power of the 
Sultans so waned as to make it needful for them to contract 
engagements with Christian sovereigns, the monks of one 
or other of the Churches found means to get their suit up- 
held by foreign intervention. In 1740 France obtained from 
the Sultan a grant which had the force of a treaty, and its 
articles or ' Capitulations,' as they were sometimes called, 
purported to confirm and enlarge all the then existing 



HOLY SHRINES. 109 

privileges of the Latin Church in Palestine. But this suc- 
cess was not closely pursued, for in the course of the suc- 
ceeding hundred years the Greeks, keenly supported by 
Russia, obtained from the Turkish Government several fir- 
mans which granted them advantages in derogation 'of the 
treaty with France ; and until the middle of this century 
France acquiesced. 

" In the contest now about to be raised between France 
and Russia, it would be wrong to suppose that, so far as 
concerned strength of motive and sincerit}^ of purpose, there 
was any approach to an equality between the contending 
Governments. In the Greek Church the right of pilorim- 
age is held to be of such deep import that if a family can 
command the means of journeying to Palestine even from 
the far distant provinces of Russia, they can scarcely retain 
the sensation of being truly devout without undertaking 
the holy enterprise ; and to this end the fruits of parsimony 
and labor enduring through all the best years of manhood 
are joyfully devoted. The compassing of vast distances 
with the narrow means at the command of a peasant is not 
achieved without suffering so great as to destroy many 
lives. This danger does not deter the brave, pious people 
of the North. As the reward of their sacrifices, their 
priests, speaking boldly in the name of Heaven, promise 
them ineffable blessings. The advantages held out are not 
understood to be dependent upon the volition and motive 
of the pilgrim, for they hold good, as baptism does, for 
children of tender years. Of course, every man who thus 
came from afar to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was 
the representative of many more who would do the like if 
they could. When the Emperor of Russia sought to gain 
or to keep for his Church the holy shrines of Palestine, he 
spoke on behalf of fifty mil'ions of brave, pious, devoted 
subjects, of whom thousands tor the sake of the cause would 
joyfully risk their lives. From the serf in his hut even up 
to the great Czar himself, the faith professed was the faith 
really glowing in the heart, and violently swaying the will. 
It was the part of wise statesmen to treat with much defer- 



110 HOLY SHKINES. 

ence an honest and pious desire which was rooted thus 
deep in the bosom of the Russian people. 

" On the other hand, the Latin Church seems not to have 
inculcated pilgrimage so earestly as its Eastern rival ; and 
if it did, it obtained but slight compliance with its precept ; 
for while the Greek pilgrim ships poured out upon the 
landing-place of Jaffa the multitudes of those who had 
survived the misery and the trials of the journey, the closest 
likeness of a pilgrim which the Latin Church could supply 
was often a mere French tourist, with a journey and a 
theory, and a plan of writing a book. It was true that the 
French Foreign Office had from time to time folloAved up those 
claims to protect the Latin Church in the East which had 
arisen in the times when the mistresses of the Most Chris- 
tian kings were pious ; but it was understood that by the 
course of her studies in the eighteenth century France had 
obtained a tight control over her religious feelings. When- 
ever she put forward a claim in her character as ' the eldest 
daughter of the Church,' men treated her demand as politi- 
cal, and dealt with it accordingly ; but as to the religious 
pretension on which it was based, Europe always met that 
with a smile, yet it will presently be seen that a claim 
which tried the gravity of diplomatists might be used as a 
puissant engine of mischief. 

" There was repose in the empire of the Sultan, and even 
the rival Churches of Jerusalem were suffering each other 
to rest, when the French President, in cold blood, and under 
no new motive for action, took up the forgotten cause of 
the Latin Church of Jerusalem, and began to apply it as a 
wedge for sundering the peace of the world. 

"The French Ambassador at Constantinople was in- 
structed to demand that the grants to the Latin Church 
which were contained in the treaty of 1740 should be 
strict^ executed, and, since the firmans granted during the 
last century to the Greek Church were inconsistent with 
the capitulations of 1740, and had long been in actual oper- 
ation, the effect of this demand on the part of the French 
President was to force the Sultan to disturb the existing 



HOLY SHRINES. HI 

state of repose, to annul the privileges which (with the ac- 
quiescence of France) the Greek Church had long been 
enjoying, to drive into frenzy the priesthood of the & Greek 
Church, and to rouse to indignation the Sovereign of the 
great military empire of the North, with all those millions 
of pious and devoted men who so far as regarded this ques- 
tion were heart and soul with their Czar. ' The Ambas- 
sador of France,' said our Foreign Secretary, 'was the 
' first to disturb the status quo in which the matter rested. 
' Not that the disputes of the Latin and the Greek Churches 
' were not very active, but that without some political ac- 
' tion on the part of France, those quarrels would never 
1 have troubled the relations of friendly Powers. If report 
'is to be believed, the French Ambassador was the first to 
'speak of having recourse to force, and to threaten the in- 
tervention of a French fleet to enforce the demands of his 

< country. We should deeply regret any dispute that might 
' lead to conflict between two of the great Powers of Europe ; 

< but when we reflect that the quarrel is for exclusive privi- 
' leges in a spot near which the heavenly host proclaimed 
1 peace on earth and good- will towards men— when we see 
' rival Churches contending for mastery in the very place 
* where Christ died for mankind— the thought of such a 

'spectacle is melancholy indeed Both parties ought 

'to refrain from putting armies and fleets in motion for 
'the purpose of making the tomb of Christ a cause of 
' quarrel among Christians.'* 

" Still, in a narrow and technical point of view, the claim 
of France might be upheld, because it was based upon a 
treaty between France and the Porte which could not be 
legally abrogated without the consent of the French Gov- 
ernment; and the concessions to the Greek Church, though 
obtained at the instance of Russia, had not been put into 
the form of treaty engagements, and could always be re- 
voked at the pleasure of the Sultan. Accordingly, M. de 
Lavalette continued to press for the strict fulfillment of 

♦'Eastern Papers,' part i., page 67. 



112 HOLY SHRINES. 

the treaty, and being guided, as it would seem, by violent 
instructions, and being also zealous and unskilled, be soon 
carried his urgency to the extremity of using offensive 
threats, and began to speak of what should be done by 
the French fleet. The Russian Envoy, better versed in 
affairs, used wiser but hardly less cogent words, requiring 
that the firmans should remain in force; and, since no in- 
genuity could reconcile the engagements of the treaty with 
the grants contained in the firmans, the Porte, though hav- 
ing no interest of its own in the question, was tortured and 
alarmed by the contending negotiators. It seemed almost 
impossible to satisfy France without affronting the Emperor 
Nicholas. 

" The French, however, did not persist in claiming up 
to the very letter of the treaty of 1740, and, on the other 
hand, there were some of the powers of exclusion granted 
by the firmans which the Greeks could be persuaded to 
forego ; and thus the subject remaining in dispute was nar- 
rowed down until it seemed almost too slender for the ap- 
prehension of laymen. 

" Stated in bare terms, the question was whether, for the 
purpose of passing through the building into their Grotto, 
the Latin monks should have the key of the chief door 
of the Church of Bethlehem, and also one of the keys of 
each of the two doors of the sacred manger,* and whether 
they should be at liberty to place in the sanctuary of the 
Nativity a silver star adorned with the arms of France. 
The Latins also claimed a privilege of worshiping once a 
year at the shrine of the Blessed Mary in the Church of 
Gethsemane ; and they went on to assert their right to have 
'a cupboard and a lamp in the tomb of the Virgin,' but 
in this last pretension they were not well supported by 
France,f and virtually, it was their claim to have a key of 
the great door of the Church of Bethlehem instead of being 
put off with a key of the lesser door, which long remained 

* 'Eastern Papers,' part i., p. 84. -j- Ibid., p. 48. 



HOLY SHRINES. 113 

insoluble, and had to be decided by the advance of armies,* 
and the threatening movement of fleets. 

" Diplomacy, somewhat startled at the nature of the ques- 
tion committed to its charge, but repressing the coarse 
emotion of surprise, ' ventured,' as it is said, ' to inquire 
'whether in this case a key meant an instrument for open- 
' ing a door, only not to be employed in closing that door 
'against Christians of other sects, or whether it was simply 
a key — an emblem ;'f but diplomacy answered, that the 
key was really a key — a key for opening a door, and its 
evil quality was — not that it kept the Greeks out, but that 
it let the Latins come in. 

" After the change which was wrought in the institutions 
of France in the night between the 1st and the 2nd of De- 
cember, 1851, increased violence seems to have been im- 
parted to the instructions under which M. de Lavalette was 
acting, and his demand was so urgently pressed that the 
Porte at length gave way, and acknowledged the validity 
of the Latin claims in a formal Note;t but the paper had 
not been signed more than a few days, when the Russian 
Minister, making hot remonstrance, caused the Porte to 
issue a firman, 1 1 ratifying all the existing privileges of the 
Greeks, and virtually revoking the acknowledgment just 
given to the Latins. Thereupon, as was natural, the French 
Government became indignant, and to escape its auger the 
Porte promisecl to evade the public reading of the firman 
at Jerusalem ;§ but the Russian Minister, not relaxing his 
zeal, the Turkish Government secretly promised him that 
the Pasha of Jerusalem should be instructed to try to avoid 
giving up the keys to the Latin monks. 

Then again, under further pressure by France, the Porte 
engaged to evade this last evasion, and at length the duty 
of affecting to carry out the conflicting engagements thus 
made by the Porte was entrusted to Afif Bey. This calm 

* See Count Nesselrode's Dispatches, ibid., p. 61. f Ibid., p. 79. 

% Note of the 19th February, 1852. 

|| The firman of the ml-fevrier, 1852. 

§ Col. Rose to Lord Malmesbury. ' Eastern Papers,' part i., p. 46. 

8 



114 HOLY SHRINES. 

Mahometan went to Jerusalem, and strove to temporize as 
well as he could betwixt the angry Churches. His great 
difficulty was to avert the rage which the Greeks would be 
likely to feel when they came to know that the firman was 
not to be read; and the nature of his little stratagem 
showed that, although he was a benighted Moslem, he had 
some insight into the great ruling principle of ecclesiastical 
questions. His plan was to inflict a bitter disappointment 
upon the Latins in the presence of the Greek priesthood, 
for he imagined that in their delight at witnessing the mor- 
tification of their rivals, the Greeks might be made to over- 
look the great question of the public reading of the firman. 
So, as soon as the ceremonial visits had been exchanged, 
Afif Bey, with a suite of the local Eflendis, met the three 
Patriarchs, Greek, Latin, and Arminian, in the Church of 
the Resurrection just in front of the Holy Sepulchre itself, 
and under the great dome, and there he ' made an oration 
' upon the desire of his Majesty the Sultan to gratify all 
' classes of his subjects,' and when M. Basily and the Greek 
Patriarch, and the Russian Archimandrite were becoming 
impatient for the public reading of the firman which was 
to give to their Church the whole of the Christian sanctu- 
aries of Jerusalem, the Bey invited all the disputants to 
meet him in the Church of the Virgin near Gethsemane. 
There he read an order of the Sultan for permitting the 
Latins to celebrate a mass once a year, but then, to the 
great joy of the Greeks, and to the horror of their rivals, 
he went on to read words commanding that the altar and 
its ornaments should remain undisturbed. 'No sooner/ 
says the official account, ' were these words uttered, than 

* the Latin, who had come to receive their triumph over the 

* Orientals, broke out into loud exclamations of the impos- 

* sibility of celebrating mass upon a schismatic slab of 
'marble, with a covering of silk and gold instead of plain 
'linen, among schismatic vases, and before a crucifix which 
'has the feet separated instead of one nailed over the 
' other.' Under cover of the storm thus raised, Afif Bey 
perhaps thought for a moment that he had secured his 



HOLY SHRINES. -jir 



escape, and for awhile he seems to have actually disen- 
tangled himself from the Churches, and to have succeeded 
in gaining his quarters. 

"But when the delight of witnessing the discomfiture of 
the Latins had in some degree subsided, the Greeks per- 
ceived that, after all the main promise had been evaded. 
The firman had not been read. M. Basily, the Russian 
Consul-General, called on Afif Bey, and required that the 
reading of the firman should take place. At first the Bey 
affected not to know what firman was meant, but after- 
ward he said he had no copy of it; and at length, being 
then at the end of his strategems, he acknowledged that 
he had no instructions to read it. Thereupon M. Easily 
sent off Prince Garan to Jaffa to convey these tidings to 
Constantinople in any Arab vessel that could be found 
and then hurrying to the Pasha of Jerusalem, he demanded 
to have a special council assembled, with himself and the 
Greek Patriarch in attendance, in order that Russia and 
the Orthodox Church might know once for all whether the 
firman had been sent or not; but when the meeting was 
gathered, Hafiz Pasha only 'made a smooth speech on the 
'well known benevolence of his Majesty toward all classes 
ot his subjects, and that was all that could be said.'* So 
the Greeks, though they had been soothed for a moment 
by the discomfiture of their Latin adversaries in the Church 
of the Virgin, could not any longer fail to see that their 
rivals were in the ascendent, and it soon turned out that 
the promise to evade the delivery of the keys was not to 
be faithfully kept. 

"The pressure of France was applied with increasing 
force, and it produced its effect. In the month of Decem- 
ber, 1852, the silver star was brought with much pomp from 
the coast. Some of the Moslem Effendis went down to 
Jaffa to escort it, and others rode out a good way on the 
road that they might bring it into Jerusalem with triumph • 
and on Wednesday, the 22nd of the same month, the Latin 

part C Cp a 44 Filla l ° EaH ° f Ma,mesbu T, October 27, 1852. < Correspondence/ 



116 HOLT SHRINES. 

Patriarch, with joy and a great ceremony, replaced the 
glittering star in the sanctuary of Bethlehem, and at the 
same time the key of the great door of the church, together 
with the keys of the sacred manger, was handed over to 
the Latins."* 

The Russian Government was right therefore in viewing 
this conflict as a religious one, and declared truthfully that 
it took up arms in defense of the national religion. The 
Russians evidently believed this to he true, and the Russian 
soldiers were fired with religious enthusiasm in addition to 
their love of country. 

These are dangerous elements to cope with, especially 
when an army thus excited is scientifically directed, and 
supplied with every weapon of destruction known to modern 
war. This was sufficiently shown by the wonderful defense 
of Sebastopol. But it was declared that the Russian Gov- 
ernment imposed upon the people, and without cause mad- 
dened them with a fanaticism whose only purpose was to 
stimulate them for the conflict. 



* Consul Finn to Earl of Malmesbury, Dec. 28, 1852 ; but see Mr. Pisani'o 
note, p. 106. 



THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF THE EASTERN WAR. 117 



CHAPTER XI. 



THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF THE EASTERN WAR. 

The idea was contemptuously scouted that the struggle 
was in any sense to be regarded as a religious war. But 
notwithstanding these confident assertions, the facts in the 
case, as they will appear to any candid observer who will 
view the present in the light thrown over it from the past, 
will disclose a religious aspect to this contest as clearly 
marked as its commercial phase, and even more important. 
Russia is guilty of no falsehood when she asserts that the 
war was directed against her national faith. Such were not 
the motives of England ; as stated in a preceding chapter, 
she was swayed by commercial considerations almost exclu- 
sively, holding herself indifferent alike to the Greek Church, 
Romanism, or Mohammedanism ; or rather choosing, as 
she has deliberately avowed, that the power of the Papacy 
should be revived in Europe under France, than that Russia 
should not be humbled. 

The real character of the war can not be fully understood 
without a careful study of its religious bearings, and of the 
present religious aspect of Europe, and this investigation 
should include at least the outline of the history of the 
Greek and Latin Churches. Whoever undertakes to ex- 
plain " the Eastern Question" without giving a prominent 
position to the relations of these churches to each other, 
will only deceive himself and others. It belongs in part to 
the quarrel of the Ages between the East and the West. 



118 THE KELIGIOUS ASPECT OF THE EASTERN WAR. 

The history and character of the Greek Church are com • 
paratively little known to the mass of the American people. 
Far removed from the theater of its life, we have had little 
occasion to study its nature or its movements. 

With Protestantism and Romanism only before our eyes, 
it has scarcely occurred to us that there is still another 
branch of the original Church which has not only been an 
important actor in the history of the past, but occupies a 
prominent place in the present, and must from its numbers 
and power influence largely the future. We have, and 
with good reason, been chiefly interested in the movements 
of the Roman Catholic Church, whose emissaries swarm 
around us, intent here as elsewhere, upon schemes for the 
overthrow of all power which stands opposed to Rome. 
We have been fully employed in defending our institutions, 
our liberties and the faith of our fathers, from the Jesuits 
and priests that fill our land with their intrigues, and little 
thought has been bestowed upon the Greek Church, and 
little has been known of it aside from the facts communi- 
cated by our missionaries, who have come in contact with 
it at Constantinople and at Athens. 

These, however, are but fragments, and deeply corrupted 
ones, of the ancient body, while it is the Russian Church, 
fifty millions strong, which has taken its place among the 
great religious Powers of earth, and which is now in reality 
the Greek Church. Its character must be studied not at 
Constantinople, nor at Athens, but at home ; for the policy 
of the Russian Church will in the end give direction and 
character to all. Because there has been persecution at 
Constantinople and Athens, it is ungenerous and deceptive 
to assume that the Russian Church is actuated by a similar 
spirit, and so endeavor to arouse against her the hatred of 
the world. Let the Church of Russia be judged by its 
acts. 

A majority of readers will probably be better prepared to 
understand this portion of our subject, if their attention is 
first directed to some prominent facts in the history of the 
Greek and Latin Churches, and the Eastern and Western 



THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF THE EASTERN WAR. 119 

empires. Through these the origin and true character of 
the war, and the actual position of Russia will appear. 
Although the scholar will find here only the most familiar 
facts, yet it is believed that those who have little leisure 
for the investigation of such subjects, will derive some 
benefit from this brief epitome of a portion of history. 

The Church of Christ was for some centuries a united 
body. From the regions beyond the Euphrates, westward 
to its utmost limits, in what is now western Europe, it was 
one undivided whole, its thousands of local churches belong- 
ing to one communion. Then, also, one civil power ruled 
over all the theater of the old civilization, and its one capi- 
tal city was Rome. As was perfectly natural, the Bishops 
of the principal cities in the Roman Empire felt an import- 
ance proportioned to the positions which they occupied, 
and the prelates of Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria, Rome, 
and Constantinople, were jealous of each other's power, 
and struggled for the supremacy. The Bishop of Rome, 
located at the Capital of the Empire, possessed great advan- 
tages over his competitors, and soon secured for himself a 
proud pre-eminence, though not an undisputed one, among 
his jealous rivals. 

He early asserted for himself the Primacy in the Church, 
and claimed the distinction of Universal Bishop. The pre- 
lates of Rome neglected no acts by which the power of the 
other Metropolitans of the Empire could be diminished and 
their own increased. They claimed nothing less than the 
supreme dominion of the world, and each year brought them. 
nearer to the accomplishment of their purpose. At last the 
contest was narrowed down to the Bishops of Rome and 
Constantinople, which latter city having been made the 
Capital of the Roman Empire, by Constantine, soon rivaled 
and even eclipsed both the splendor and power of Rome. 
The Roman Pontiff found himself confronted in the East 
by a most formidable rival, wielding all those advantages 
which belong to the metropolis of a great empire, and 
which Rome had hitherto exclusively enjoyed. 

The Bishop of Constantinople now naturally hoped to 



120 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF THE EASTERN WAR. 

hold himself the position of Universal Pontiff, and boldly 
asserted his claim to exclusive dominion over the Church. 
The proud prelate at Rome, however, was by no means in- 
clined to abate one tittle of his loftiest pretentions. A bitter 
quarrel between the two ensued, which was handed down 
to their successors — a contest between the East and the 
West, between the Latins and the Greek race. The Pre- 
lates denounced, and even excommunicated each other, and 
bitter hatred sprung up and was cherished by the contend- 
ing parties. Disputes of various kinds continually widened 
the breach. 

The genius of Hildebrand conceived for the Roman Cath- 
olic Church that stupendous scheme of universal dominion, 
both over the Church and over the governments of the 
world, which from his time has shaped the unvarying 
policy of the Papacy, which distinguishes its vast ambition 
both from the Greek Church and every other body bearing 
the Christian name, and which directs her every effort, 
whether in her hour of weakness or of strength, to the 
subjugation of the world. As a consequence of her settled 
policy, the Roman Catholic Pontiff' never ceased to claim 
authority over the Bishop of Constantinople, nor abandoned 
the design of finally subduing his power. 

It is probably sufficient for the present purpose to state 
results, without dwelling upon the progress of events. An 
entire separation was finally produced between the East 
and the West — between the Greeks and Latins, or Roman 
Catholics. Constantinople remained the actual capital of 
the Roman Empire, and head of the Eastern or Greek 
Church, while the Pope at Rome was head of the Latin 
Church, the Church of the West. The western, or Latin, 
portion of the Roman Empire was overrun by the Northern 
Barbarians, and when out of its ruins several small king- 
doms sprung up in western Europe, Charlemagne united 
them all in one empire, of which France was the head. 

There was then a Greek Empire and a Greek Church, 
whose chief city was Constantinople, and a western Latin 
Empire under the crown of France, and a western Latin 



THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF THE EASTERN WAR. 121 

Church, whose head was the Pope at Rome. The world 
was divided between the contending interests of the Greeks 
and Latins. When the countries which now form portions 
of the Russian Empire were converted to Christianity, they 
united themselves mainly with the Greek Church, and so 
from the earliest times Russia has been allied by religious 
sympathies with the East, and as such has been opposed 
and hated by the Latin Powers and Papal Church. 

The constant effort of the Pope has been to bring the 
East into subjection to the power of Rome, and force and 
fraud have been alike freely employed to extend over Con- 
stantinople the influence of the Papacy. This hatred of the 
Greek Church and Empire was carried to such a height, 
that in the time of the Crusades, the Latin or Roman Cath- 
olic Crusaders turned away from their attempts to recover 
Jerusalem from the Turks, and besieged, captured and pil- 
laged Constantinople, with the double purpose of centering 
its Eastern commerce upon the Roman Catholic cities of the 
western Mediterranean, and of subjecting the Greek Church 
to the power of the Pope. 

From this severe blow Constantinople did not recover. 
The Eastern Empire had been previously partly spoiled of 
its provinces — first by the Arabs, and then by the Seljukian 
Turks ; it grew weaker and weaker, and with the capture 
of Constantinople by the Ottomans, in 1453, the Greek 
Empire and Greek Church fell and disappeared together. 
The fragments of the Greek Church proper now found 
within the limits of the Turkish Empire are the descend- 
ants of the remnant which escaped the ferocity of the Mus- 
sulman conquerors. 

For four hundred years, the fiercest foe that Christianity 
ever encountered has been encamped in Europe on the 
ruins of the Empire and the Church, which he trampled 
scornfully out in tears and blood, filling with cruelty and 
oppression, and withering up the beauty and fertility of 
some of the loveliest portions of the earth; and now, with 
the shocking barbarities of a thousand years from the time 
of the rise of Mohammedanism ringing in the ears of all 



122 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF THE EASTERN WAR. 

Christendom — with the blood and tears of millions of mur- 
dered Christians, victims of Turkish lust and fury, crying 
unto God from that fair but desolated land — American 
Christians are called upon to pray for the preservation of 
Turkey, to pray that the devastating deluge of Moham- 
medanism might not ebb away from the plains of Europe. 

But while Constantinople was trodden under foot by the 
Turks, and the Eastern Empire spoiled, and while the 
western world was prostrate at the Papal throne, God was 
nursing a new power in the regions of the unknown iTorth, 
which was to bring once more the Greek Church, in a 
most imposing form, upon the world's theater, and open 
before it another career of greatness. Russia adopted, from 
the first, the Greek faith and worship, and of course in- 
herited the Eastern quarrel with the Romish Church, and 
was cordially hated in return by the Catholic Powers of 
the West, especially by the Pope. 

She looked to Constantinople, as the Catholics regarded 
Rome. There was Russia's mother Church, and there was 
her holy city. From the time of the conquest of Constan- 
tinople by the Turks, Russia meditated their expulsion 
from Europe, and the regaining of her Holy City, which, 
like " Holy Moscow," at home, stirred the religious sym- 
pathies of her people. 

This fact is thus stated in Blackwood's Magazine, for 
July, 1855 : 

" The close of the reign of Vassili III. was marked by 
the taking of Constantinople by the Turks. This event 
made a great sensation in Russia. ' Greece,' says Karam- 
sin, ' was a second mother country to us ; the Russians 
always recollected with gratitude that they owed her 
Christianity, the rudiments of the arts, and many amenities 
of social life. In the town of Moscow, people spoke of 
Constantinople as in modern Europe the} 7 spoke of Paris 
under Louis XIV.' It is among the annalists of that epoch 
that a remarkable prophecy was found, on the strength of 
which modern aggression on Turkey appears justifiable 
both to the church and state of Russia. The annalist, after 



THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF THE EASTERN WAR. 123 

mourning over the misfortunes of Constantinople, adds : 
' There remains now no orthodox empire but that of the 
* Russians; we see how the predictions of St Methodius 
i and St. Leon the Sage are accomplished, who long ago 
' announced that the sons of Ishmael should conquer By- 
' zantium. Perhaps we are destined also to see the accorn- 
1 plishment of that prophecy which promises the Russians 
' that they shall triumph over the children of Ishmael, and 
' reign over the seven hills of Constantinople.' It is worth 
while for us to consider, now that this prophecy, since the 
taking of Byzantium by the Turks, has become a fixed and 
ruling idea with the Russian people, quite as much as that 
of restoration to Judea is to the Jews. The priests and 
popes have taken good care to keep it up for their own 
purposes, as well as those of their masters, the Czars ; and 
when we take the superstition of this people into consider- 
ation, it is easily seen what a powerful lever the real or 
feigned existence of such a prophecy must put into the 
hands of those whose object it is to move the Muscovite 
race." 

This feeling has strengthened with the increasing power 
of Russia, and it evinces no unusual degree of national 
ambition or vanity that now, with fifty millions of Greek 
Christians within her own dominions, and twelve millions 
more in Turkey affiliated to her by a kindred worship, and 
with a million of soldiers at her disposal, she should regard 
herself as the proper head of the Greek Church, the de- 
fender of its faith, the representative of the Eastern Empire, 
and as commissioned to recover and to hold Constantinople. 
These facts, though they justify no wrong which Russia 
may have committed, yet serve to explain her policy, and 
to show why it is that she seems determined to construct 
for herself, even over prostrate nations, a highway to Con- 
stantinople and the East. 

The following statement is also quoted from Blackwood: 
" Ivan IV. was crowned by the Metropolitan, and salutea 
by the Byzantine title of Autocrat. Thus it seems that he 
wished to be recognized as the heir of the defunct Greek 



124 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF THE EASTERN WAR. 

sovereignty, and the master dejurc, if not de facto, of By- 
zantium. These are important facts, because they show 
that the idea of the acquisition of Turkey does not merely 
date from the time of Peter, but has been a fixed prin- 
ciple of action with Russian sovereigns ever since the fall 
of the Lower Empire. We can not help considering the 
other encroachments of Russia on the map of Europe as in 
a measure incidental, brought about often by an unforeseen 
concurrence of circumstances, at the same time eagerly 
caught at by the nation as a means to this one great end, 
the possession of Constantinople, and the centralization of 
all the Russias and their dependencies in the great capital 
on the Bosphorus. This has been and is the one definite 
and distinct object of the ambition of the Czars, the avarice, 
of the courtiers, and the fanaticism of the people. That 
Russia or her sovereigns ever had any distinct design of 
conquering and absorbing the west of Europe we can hardly 
believe, although such would doubtless be to her a consum-. 
mation devoutly to be wished. For iustance, Germany was 
divided, bribed, and overawed, not with a view to immediate 
conquest, but with a view to silencing her protest against 
Russian aggression ; and here Russia has fully gained her 
point. Only one thing was wanted — the revival of the old 
antagonism between England and France, a thing which 
seemed the easiest of all, but turned out, contrary to all 
expectation, the most difficult — that Constantinople should 
be once again the capital of the Eastern world." 

It is only necessary to bear in mind the character of this 
ancieut quarrel between the East and the West, between 
the Papacy determined to subjugate the Greek Church, and 
that Greek Church equally resolved upon self-defense and 
independence, to comprehend why Russia would guard with 
most jealous watchfulness against any interference of the 
Roman Catholic Powers with Turkey, and especially when 
coming from France, which is now the most powerful, as 
well as the most earnest defender of the Papacy in Europe ; 
France, which to gratify the Pope trampled out the Italian 
Republic, and now with a Jesuit as chief adviser of the 



TIIE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF THE EASTERN WAR. 125 

Emperor, makes war on Russia in the name of civilization 
and liberty. The " Eastern question," then resolves itself 
mainly into the old contest between races and churches, 
between the East and the West, between Russia as repre- 
senting the Eastern Empire and Greek Church, and the 
Latin Powers of western Europe, represented in France, to 
whom, for commercial purposes, England has for the time 
allied herself. The immediate struggle previous to the war, 
was between France and Russia, on the field of diplomacy 
at the court of the Sultan : France, by the aid of the Jesuits, 
was endeavoring to extend the Papal influence over Turkey, 
and through a Protectorate over one million of Roman 
Catholics in the Ottoman Empire, to obtain a pretext for 
interfering with its concerns at some convenient oppor- 
tunity. 

It was the old design, never abandoned at Rome, of add- 
ing ultimately Constantinople to its dominions. To carry 
out this design France originated the strife concerning the 
Holy Places at Jerusalem, and undertook to repair for Ro- 
man Catholic use a church which had hitherto been claimed 
by the Greek Church. To effect these purposes some musty 
claims, which had been sleeping a hundred years, were 
hunted up and revived — by Louis [Napoleon — and in these 
questions, started by France for such purposes, the imme- 
diate causes of the war may be found. 

By the custom of several generations, the occupation of 
the Christian churches and other " Holy Places" at Jerusa- 
lem had been divided between the Greek and Latin Churches, 
but Louis Napoleon, by the aid of Catholic priests and 
Jesuits, hunted up some old and neglected treaty stipulations 
which the Ottoman Government had once made in favor 
of the Roman Catholic Church, and then formally demanded 
that the " Holy Places" should be controlled strictly accord- 
ing to the letter of the old treaty, which had been dragged 
for the purpose out of its tomb. 

To this Russia objected, and as Protector of the Greek 
Church demanded that the existing state of things, so long 
settled by custom, should still continue. Here was the 



126 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF THE EASTERN WAR. 

originating point of the difficult}-, the Papal Church search- 
ing out forgotten records in order to revive its old quarrel 
with the Greek Church, and manufacture an occasion for 
interference with the concerns of Turkey. Russia only 
asked that the course of several generations should still be 
pursued without disturbance. This very important point 
in the history of that war and the Eastern question, should 
not be forgotten. France, and not Russia, was the aggres- 
sor, and it began as a religious quarrel, precisely as Russia 
has declared. 

It was a collision between the eastern and western churches 
produced by a demand of France, the very nature of which 
shows every feature of Jesuit intrigue, and that it was de- 
signed as an entering wedge of difficulty. Let it be re- 
membered, too, that France had succeeded in obtaining a 
protectorate over one million of Roman Catholic subjects 
of the Porte, the intention of which was of course well 
understood by Russia. Austria also, another Roman Cath- 
olic Power, had obtained from the Turkish Government 
Stipulations in favor of Catholic subjects, while the rights 
of Russia, in regard to twelve millions of Greek Christians, 
rested on verbal promises and customs, instead of treaty 
stipulations, excepting, perhaps, the treaty of Kainardji, 
the meaning of which was in dispute, the validity of which, 
as interpreted by Russia, had been acknowledged by an 
English minister, as previously stated. 

With these evidences of a settled design on the part of 
the Catholic Powers, and especially France, to secure exclu- 
sive advantages for themselves, and with the manifest will- 
ingness on the part of the Porte to yield to their demands, 
what was the course of Russia? No opprobious epithet 
has been spared in denouncing her conduct at this point, 
and French and English talent has been lavishly employed 
to exhibit her as worthy only of the scorn and hatred of 
the world. What then are the facts ? In regard to the 
the Holy Places, Russia simpl} 7 ' demanded that no alteration 
should be made in the existing state of things, which had 
been peaceably acquiesced in for " several generations," 



THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF THE EASTERN WAR. 127 

according to English authorities. This was so eminently 
reasonable, that France did not choose to risk her reputa- 
tion by refusing, and the question of the Holy Places was 
thus settled by the abandonment of the claims of the 
Papacy; 

But France and Austria had obtained by treaty stipula- 
tion the right to a protectorate over the one million of 
Catholics in the Turkish dominions, while the right of 
Russia in her protection of twelve millions of Greek Chris- 
tians rested, with the exception of the disputed treaty, on 
a traditional privilege, custom, and the verbal promise of 
the Porte, not upon express treaty, as did those of France. 
With this Russia had been satisfied until the designs of the 
Papal Powers had been disclosed in the matter of the Holy 
Places, and until it was evident that the Roman Catholic 
influence was likely to become the ruling one with the 
Sultan. 

Russia then asked that the privileges which she had 
enjoyed, and which rested on custom, and promises, ex- 
cepting only the disputed treaty of Kainardji, should now 
be secured by formal contract, as those of France had 
already been, thus placing her rights on the same footing 
with the other Powers. She asked for herself no peculiar 
or exclusive advantages ; she demanded simply that the 
Greek Christians should be placed on the same condition 
as other Christian Powers, and that verbal promises and 
custom should be ratified by assuming the form of a treaty. 
It has nowhere been shown that Russia demanded any new 
privileges, anything not previously enjoyed, but she only 
desired that existing rights should have the solemn sanction 
of a treaty. 

This point can not be too strongly insisted upon, because 
the charge was continually made against Russia, that after 
the settlement of the question of the Holy Places, she 
advanced entirely new pretentions, alike incompatible with 
the honor of the Porte and the safety of Europe. This has 
been brought forward on all occasions, to show that Russia 
was pre-determined upon a rupture with Turkey, or upon 



128 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF THE EASTERN "WAR. 

forcing her to accept such terms as would prove her ruin. 
Let it therefore be remembered that the new demand of 
Russia was simply to be secured by treaty in the rights which 
she then possessed. 

She asked nothing which had not been previously granted 
and secured so far as customary use and verbal promise 
could avail, but fearing that Jesuit artifice and influence 
might induce the Ottoman Government to change its mind, 
Nicholas chose to ask the security of a written document, 
such as the other Powers had already obtained. This re- 
quest, which history must yet pronounce a most reasonable 
one, Turkey, advised by France and England, refused. 

France, England, Turkey, all were willing, perfectly so, 
to re-affirm existing treaties as Turkey construed them. But 
all parties were aware that existing treaties while they secured 
the rights desired by Roman Catholics, did not in like manner 
provide for those of the Greek Church. You have our word 
for it, was the reply of Turkey, and with that you should 
be satisfied. We agree to place the Greek Christians on 
the same footing with others. Let us have this in due form 
of treaty, was the answer of Russia, and we are satisfied. 
But Turkey refused. 

We have the authority of the best English writers for 
stating that the promises given to Russia and the rights 
she enjoyed, did not differ from those of other Powers. 
" That engagement with Russia did not differ in principle 
"from any similar promise given to any other Power." Such 
is the language of the Edinburgh Review, in speaking of 
the engagements entered into between the Porte and the 
European Powers, including Russia, concerning the Chris- 
tians in Turkey. Russia then had claimed nothing unusual, 
nothing which other Powers did not possess, and nothing 
which had not been verbally, and as she claimed, by treaty 
also, conceded to her already, and sanctioned by long use. 
What then was the point of difficulty so grave, so incap- 
able of removal, as to produce this terrible war? Once 
more let it be repeated. 

Turkey, by the advice of the Allies, refused to give Russia 



TIIE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF THE EASTERN WAR. 129 

any formal written legal security for her acknowledged 
rights, when this had already been done in regard to other 
Powers. She was willing to be bound by formal treaty in 
regard to the one million of Roman Catholics, when de- 
manded b} 7 France and Austria, but she insisted that her 
unsupported word was enough for Russia, and the twelve 
millions of Greek Christians, and in this position she was 
supported by England and France. They insisted that 
Russia should not have a legal and formal right to privi- 
leges which all parties acknowledged ; and, of course, 
whenever France could persuade or overawe the Turkish 
Government, they could be denied altogether. 

It was precisely the case of a man refusing to give any 
written obligation for a debt which he acknowledges to be 
just, leaving himself the privilege of repudiating it at his 
pleasure. No one could blame a creditor, under such cir- 
cumstances, for endeavoring to secure himself; and history 
will justify Russia, first, in believing that Turkey did not 
intend to fulfill engagements to which she refused to bind 
herself in due form, and second, for attempting to secure 
her acknowledged rights — and more especially when every 
movement showed that France was seeking to make it the 
occasion either of quarrel or of reviving her supremacy in 
the councils of Turkey. 

"If," says the Edinburgh Review, "the new demands of 
" Russia were of a nature to confer upon her in a definite 
" and legal form, rights of protectorate over the Christian 
" subjects of the Porte, they were demands which called 
" for the resistance of Europe." The world will be inclined 
to ask lohyl Precisely such rights of protectorate had 
already been granted to France in " definite and legal form-;" 
why then should they be refused to Russia, particularly 
when for a long time she had enjoyed them without dis- 
pute, and " they did not differ in principle" from what had 
been formally secured to others? 

If Russia would be content with a mere " re-affirmation 
of existing treaties" France and England would agree to 
such a note ; but all well knew that this settled nothing, 
9 



130 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF THE EASTERN WAR. 

because the very sense insisted upon by Russia in the treaty 
of Kainardji was disputed by France, and finally by Eng- 
land also, when it suited her convenience, after her marriage 
with France. Russia asked only a stipulation confirming 
her construction of this treaty, but France and England 
refused to admit this construction, and consequently this 
proposal to re-affirm existing treaties was a mere specious 
device. The clause in the treaty of Kainardji is in these 
words : " The Sublime Porte promises constantly to protect 
the Christian religion and its churches." 

This certainly in itself is sufficiently indefinite. But 
when Turkey, under this general rule, enters into certain 
specific relations with France and Austria, she fixes thereby 
her interpretation of the clause, or of her general obliga- 
tions to Christian Powers, and Russia, beyond all dispute, 
has a right to insist upon a similar interpretation of the 
rule in her own case. This was her only demand, and this 
Turkey and the Allies refused. 

When the blinding vail which diplomatic art has thrown 
over this transaction has been removed by time, the world 
will perceive that Russia was wronged by Turkey and the 
Allies, and that her only course was to submit to manifest 
encroachment, or prepare herself for resistance. But it 
may be asked, what motive could have influenced France 
and England to persevere, at the hazard of war, in resisting 
a just demand of Russia. The explanation is easy, and is 
given in few words by the Edinburgh Review : " That en- 
gagement with Russia did not differ in principle from any 
similar promise given to any other power. Greater danger 
attached to it in her case^ from the alliance between the forms 
of Christianity in Russia and in Turkey." 

This furnishes the key to the whole. Because there were 
in the Providence of God twelve millions of Greek Chris- 
tians in Turkey, who could be influenced by Russia, and 
only one million of Roman Catholics that could be used by 
France, therefore if Russia should possess equal rights with 
other Christian Powers, she would have an advantage over 
them all; and therefore, while Roman Catholic interests 



THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF THE EASTERN WAR. 131 

must be secured by solemn treaty, Russia must rely upon 
the unsupported word of the Porte, a promise which could 
be repudiated at pleasure. 

Such, when stripped of all the wrappage of diplomatic 
mystification, appears to be the real state of the " Eastern 
Question," in which the war originated, a war for which 
the world will yet hold France and England justly respon- 
sible. Russia saw that she was trifled with, and with reason 
felt that she was insulted, and she decided upon her course 
accordingly. In the whole history of earth, it will be diffi- 
cult to discover an example where the real merits of a case 
have been more studiously concealed, and western Europe, 
and perhaps most in America, have been led to believe 
that France and England were forced, much against their 
will, to enter into this war with Russia. In one sense this 
is true. 

They were forced into a war because Nicholas would not 
consent, after the intrigue of France in regard to the Holy 
Places, to suffer his acknowledged rights to rest any longer 
upon the mere word of the Porte, or upon the language 
of a disputed treaty, where the similar rights of other Powers 
were guaranteed in due legal form. They were forced into 
a war, rather than permit an act of simple and manifest 
justice toward Russia. From their own testimony this 
verdict will assuredly be rendered by history in due time 



132 THE PAPACY 



CHAPTER XII. 

THE PAPACT IN ITS CONNECTION WITH THE EASTERN QUESTION. 

" War is going to break out between philosophy and 
faith, between politics and religion, between Protestantism 
and Catholicism ; and the banner raised by Prance in this 
gigantic struggle will decide the fate of the world, of the 
Church, and, above all, of France herself."* 

This feature of the religious aspect of the Eastern ques- 
tion is one which demands from us, as Americans, our most 
serious regard. The activity and zeal of the French Gov- 
ernment in its efforts to obtain a controlling influence at 
Constantinople for the Roman Catholic Church, is only a 
part of a vast design which Pome has conceived for regain- 
ing her lost ascendancy over the world. She is making one 
last but mighty effort to place herself at the head of uni- 
versal dominion. 

She believes herself able even yet to carry out the design 
of Hildebrand and the Innocents, and subject all nations to 
her power once more. Americans should not forget that 
this claim to rule the world in the name of God, and as his 
only and proper representative on earth, has never for one 
moment been abandoned by the Papal Hierarchy, nor has 
their been an hour in her history, since the days of Gregory 
the Great, when she has not both designed and hoped to 

* De Custine'a Russia. 



IN ITS CONNECTION WITH THE EASTERN QUESTION. 133 

make it good. On this point no American should either 
remain indifferent, or suffer himself to be deceived. 

The one essential and unvarying claim of the Roman 
Catholic Church is, that she is of right and by the appoint- 
ment of God himself, not only the one true Church of the 
earth, but the supreme power of the world ; that, as the 
vicegerent of Jesus Christ on earth she is, in the person of 
the Pope, the rightful sovereign of all other sovereigns, 
king of kings, and lord of lords ; that all out of her pale 
are heathen or heretics ; that all dissenting governments 
ought, as heretical Powers, to be subdued or exterminated; 
that it is her duty to do this whenever and wherever she 
obtains the power ; that for this end, all means whatever 
are justifiable in the sight of God, and her stedfast inten- 
tion is to overthrow every government of earth, whether 
monarchial or republican, that refuses to submit to her 
power. 

The Roman Catholic Church has never abated one iota 
of this demand in its widest extent, and she never will. 
She can not surrender the very loftiest of the pretensions 
without abandoning all. They constitute her life. Without 
these demands, she would become simply one amono- relig- 
ious denominations, or a local, national church, like that 
of England or Russia, instead of what she now claims to 
be — the one only church of God, and, as such, the sovereign 
of the nations. 

Nor is it wise to dismiss with an idle sneer either the 
pretensions or the power of the Roman Catholic Church, 
nor blindly rely upon the boasted intelligence of the nine- 
teenth century, nor trust implicitly in the present forms 
and spirit of Protestant Christianity, as affording a sufficient 
safeguard against the designs of the Papacy, without watch- 
ful and earnest effort. Few are now ignorant of the remark- 
able change which a few years have wrought in the attitude 
and spirit of the Romish Church. But a short time has 
passed since the Pope fled, a fugitive, from his capital, and 
the hopes of the friends of freedom and of Protestantism 
were raised to the highest pitch. 



134 THE PAPACY 

It was thought that the Papal power was broken forever, 
and the day of the world's deliverance had come. Yet in 
how brief a period was despotism more firmly established 
in Europe than before, and the very power that claimed to 
be the foremost apostle of liberty, crushed out republicanism 
in Italy, and reinstated the Pope upon his throne. 

Nor has any thinking man failed to observe how, from 
that hour, the boldest, the most impious pretensions ever 
made by the Catholic Church have been revived, and doc- 
trines which even the Middle Ages could scarcely bear are 
openly proclaimed and earnestly defended in republican 
America. A more vigorous life, a more hopeful and aggres- 
sive spirit, is everywhere manifested by the Papal Power, 
and the persecuting hierarchy of the dark ages has sud- 
denly re-appeared upon the scene, throwing once more over 
the nations its haughty shadow, breathing defiance and com- 
manding submission. 

Her priests and Jesuits are abroad in every land, a mighty 
band animated by one spirit, and fired with one common 
hope of victory, and revenge for the long dishonor of their 
Church ; unscrupulous in the use of means, versed in every 
wile of diplomacy, and in every art by which the sources 
of public or private influence are reached, citizens nowhere, 
with no home or country, and bound by no feeling of 
allegiance, except to the Pope and their Church alone, they 
are making an earnest, world-wide effort for the complete 
subjugation of the nations. The' attempt which for year3 
has been made at Jerusalem and Constantinople, is but a 
part, yet a very important one in the general design. 

The revival of the old quarrel with the Eastern Church, 
is one step only in a premeditated series of aggressions in 
the East for the purpose of humbling and crippling Russia, 
the representative of the Greek Church and empire, and, 
as such, hated and feared. ]STot from idle curiosity, but 
from settled design originating with his Jesuit advisers, 
did Louis Napoleon search through the forgotten records 
of two hundred years to find an occasion against the Greek 
Church, and the means of expelling it from its possessions 



IN ITS CONNECTION WITH THE EASTERN QUESTION. 135 

in Jerusalem, and at the same time of striking a blow at 
Russia. 

It must be understood that national pride, ambition, and 
commercial interests had also a powerful influence in this 
movement, but behind all these, and using these as the in- 
struments of their working, were the leaders of the Romish 
Church, stirring up national pride and ambition, in order 
through them to advance the interests of the Papacy. A 
papal influence procured from the Porte concessions in favor 
of Catholics, which at the same time it was induced to refuse 
to Russia and twelve millions of Greek Christians, leaving 
them to the bare word of the Turkish Government, while 
Roman Catholic rights were solemnly secured by treaty. A 
Papal influence has secured an alliance between France and 
England for the crushing of Russia, the only formidable 
foe of the Papacy in Europe, and England has been led so 
to seek the gratification of her ambition, and to take such 
measures to secure her commercial supremacy, as will if 
possible check and limit the power of Russia, the defender 
of a rival Church, and thus the whole power of Protestant 
England has been made available to re-establish the suprem- 
acy of the Papacy in Europe. 

Disguise all this as we will, these are the facts, and to 
these conclusions the world ere long must come : but, pos- 
sibly too late to avert a long train of calamities which now 
are threatening Europe, if not Protestantism, throughout 
the world. Every interest of Protestant Christianity, and 
every interest of America, whether commercial or religious, 
would have been advanced by the defeat of the Allies, and 
the breaking up of the Anglo-French Alliance. 

Their success tended to the triumph of the Papacy in 
Europe, and in all the East. In England the newly awak- 
ened vigor of Rome has been manifested in equally earnest 
efforts to win back even this Protestant Power to her 
embrace and control. These attempts and the powerful 
influence which they have produced upon the English nation 
are too well known to be dwelt upon here. Whatever may 
be said of the soundness of the heart of the English nation, 



186 THE PAPACY 

all of which it is hoped will prove true, the astounding fact 
is before the world, that England has deliberately chosen a 
Papal alliance in a war whose origin was a religious one — 
that in a struggle between the Greek and Latin Churches, 
she espoused the cause of Rome, and coolly avowed that 
the war, if successful, would strengthen the Papal power in 
Europe, and that she preferred this to the progress of 
Russia. She is therefore the ally of the Latin Catholic na- 
tions against the Eastern Church and Empire. American 
Protestants may well inquire with some anxiety, what will 
become of English Protestantism? 

In our own country, this new struggle for Papal suprem- 
acy is no less earnest than at Constantinople. Armies of 
foreign priests and Jesuits are not permitted to roam at will 
in Russia, fomenting strife and intriguing against the gov- 
ernment, and therefore fleets and armies, shot and shell, 
are employed to cripple her ; while our theory of liberty 
has been that Americans have not even the right to protect 
themselves or their institutions, lest it should abridge the 
liberties of those who are endeavoring to subvert them, and 
therefore the emissaries of a foreign despotism, and mil- 
lions of emigrants wherewith they could work, have been 
directed to our shores — and to them our subjugation has 
been for the present entrusted. A concerted attack, as 
carefully planned and as determined as that upon Russia, 
has been made upon the very life of American institutions. 

The very basis of American Protestant Republicanism, 
our schools and our Bible — these have been assailed by the 
combined talent of the Papal leaders here, aided by the 
whole influence of the Pope, and by a liberal supply of 
funds from Europe. The Jesuits in America, and those at 
Jerusalem and Constantinople, are working in concert, with 
one great common end in view — the universal re-establish- 
ment of the Papal authority, and a propagandism that shall 
rule the world. The efforts of the Catholic bishops, priests 
and Jesuits here, the intrigues in the Sultan's court, and 
the batteries at Sebastopol, have but one general signifi- 
cance, though distinct commercial interests are connected 



IN ITS CONNECTION WITH THE EASTERN QUESTION. 137 

with the questions in the East. Nor should it be forgotten 
that the present revived and threatening aspect of the Ro- 
man Catholic Church is, according to the view of many 
intelligent students of prophecy, clearly foretold in the 
Word of God. 

They find it stated, as they think, in the prophetic record, 
that previous to the final destruction of the Papal power, 
there will be formed a new combination of the western Latin 
nations in one new western Empire or confederacy, which 
shall give its full support to the authority of the Pope, as the 
Empire under Charlemagne once did, and that, possessed once 
more of the needful power, Rome will again seek to glut her- 
self with Protestant blood. The tendency toward such a resuit 
in Europe is certainly sufficiently clear to arrest our earnest, 
attention. Napoleon, we know, dreamed of the restoration 
of a "Western Empire, and was crowned with the iron crown 
of Charlemagne. His ambition also took an eastern direc- 
tion, and he meditated upon an eastern dominion, resting 
on the commerce of India. 

Louis Napoleon is at least the heir of his uncle's ambition. 
France is at this moment the head and leader of the Latin 
(Catholic) Powers, and under her the} T are combined against 
the Greek Church and Russia in the East, and tending to- 
ward a confederacy in the West, which shall bear up the 
Papal throne. The influence of Russia over Austria, and 
her Sclavonic population, unfits her for a Catholic leader, 
and renders her position uncertain ; while France, with her 
bayonets at Rome, her Jesuits at Constantinople, and her 
arms at Sebastopol, has prepared herself to be the head of 
Catholic Empire, while, at the same time, she stands in 
Africa with her eye upon the East. 

Still another important aim of this new movement of the 
Roman Catholic Church is to retain its ascendency over the 
western portions of the Sclavonic race. The Bohemians, 
the Storraks, the Poles and Lithuanians (all Sclavonians), 
at their conversion to Christianity, attached themselves to 
the See of Rome ; while the Servians, Bosnians, Bulgarians, 
and Russians, (all Sclavonians, also,) united themselves with 



188 THE PAPACY. 

Constantinople and the Greek Church. The Russians and 
Poles are, therefore, of one race but different religions, 
and the hostility of the Poles to Russia is stimulated by 
Catholic influence, and were this withdrawn, the ties of race 
would gradually unite again these now separated branches 
of the same family. Hence the desire to wrest Poland from 
Russia, and prevent this union. Let it be remembered that 
if Poland is not controlled by Russia, she will be crushed 
by the worse despotism of the Papacy. Roman Catholic 
civilization curses whatever it touches. 

Such being the state of Europe, and such the undeniable 
position, hopes, and efforts of the Romish Church, it cer- 
tainly requires no far-seeing sagacity to understand the 
interests and dangers of the United States in this momen- 
tous stru°:e;le. 



England's course towards Russia. 139 



CHAPTER XIII. 



ENGLAND'S COURSE TOWARD RUSSIA IN REGARD TO THE EASTERN QUESTION 
AND THE CRIMEAN WAR. 



The course of England towards Russia in regard to the 
Eastern Question and in the invasion of the Crimea, was so 
similar to her treatment of us, that the one explains the 
other, and at the risk of partial repetition in some points, it 
seems proper to present to Americans the main facts of that 
chapter in her history, in order that they may compare 
England then with England now, and learn that in her 
course towards us she is governed by the same policy which 
guided her then ; that this is her national policy, to be 
applied to Russia or America, as the case may demand ; 
and whether she strikes eastward at monarchy or westward 
at a republic, her general purpose is precisely the same. 
Particularly is it to be observed, that as France created a 
cause for war, and forced Russia into the conflict with her, 
so also England, on her part, sought an occasion for quarrel 
with Russia, and, notwithstanding all the denunciations of 
the British Press, it was England and not Russia who 
began the war. 

England sought a war with Russia, and nearly the whole 
power of her Press was employed to cover this intention 
by the most violent accusations against Nicholas and his 
people, knowing all the while that the Czar desired more 
than all things else peace with England, in the same manner 



140 England's course towards Russia 

that the English Government stirred up the people to fury in 
the case of the Trent, with the charge that we desired to in- 
sult and declare war upon England, when at the same time 
they held in their hands official evidence that we were earn- 
estly desirous of peace on any terms which would save our 
national honor- 
That England was the aggressor in the war with Russia 
will be readily seen from the following facts and admissions 
by the English Press. 

The Emperor Nicholas was England's guest in 1844, and 
wdiile there he made certain propositions to the British 
Cabinet as to the manner in which the Turkish question 
should be settled upon the fall of that empire, an event that 
he declared must necessarily be near. 

In regard to this matter, one of the most influential of 
the English periodicals used the following language soon 
after the death of the Emperor Nicholas : 

" That it would have been most discreditable to England 
to have made such pact is generally admitted — far more 
to her indeed than to Nicholas, for the aggressive policy 
southward was the tradition of his race, and he spoke in 
the name of growing and expanding Russia. But we 
hardly saved our honor in the transaction as it was, for the 
ministry listened smilingly, and the Times wrote leading articles 
on the sickness of Turkey. Let this pass. "We only meant 
to say that he (Nicholas) meant no harm to us, for we can 
not suppose that the Czar could have ruminated on the dis- 
tant closing up of Russia on England, like the iron prison 
in its last fatal change on the victim of Italian revenge. 
There is no doubt that we have acted wisely, most wisely, 
in preferring the alliance of France to his, for France and 
England are doing each other good every day of their 
united lives ; but still it is not fair that we should bear his 
memory any malice, for it was we and not he who struck 
the first blow. He has done nothing to deserve at our 
hands unseemly caricatures, or that his death should have 
been applauded in an English theater." 



IN REGARD TO THE EASTERN QUESTION. 141 

111 these few honest sentences there is much food for 
thought, and many reasons are found why Americans, at 
least, should hesitate to give credence to the specious dec- 
larations that England was forced into that war, in defense 
of civilization and humanity, statements which have heen 
made merely to render the war popular, and to excite the 
people against Russia, a work which has been so thoroughly 
done that the English people disgraced themselves by savage 
cheering at the Emperor's death. England having pos- 
sessed herself, by her maritime superiority, and by her con- 
quest of India, of the commerce of the East, adopted the 
double public policy of securing to herself the advantages 
she had won, and of excluding if possible other nations 
from a participation in this lucrative trade. 

It has been, therefore, one of her chief anxieties to estab- 
lish, if possible, and hold for her own benefit, a monopoly 
of the East, and for this purpose her jealous care has been 
to prevent the re-opening of any of the old highways of 
that trade whereby it could be diverted from her own 
marts, or to gain possession of them herself. While the 
ocean route could remain the only or the main channel be- 
tween India and Europe, by her ships and her possessions 
in Hindostan the monopoly of the trade would be hers, and 
she would rest content. But when the question of estab- 
lishing other communications arose, England was almost 
omnipresent to secure herself against a rival. Hence her 
intrigues in Central America, and her establishment on the 
Mosquito shore, and her projects on the Isthmus of Panama, 
for ship canals, in order that she might gain possession of 
the American key to the Indies ; hence, also, her fleet at 
the mouth of the Nile when Bonaparte was in Egypt threat- 
ening to re-open and hold for France the old Bed Sea route 
to the East ; which scheme, had it been successful, might 
have restored to the cities of the Mediterranean their an- 
cient wealth and power ; and hence, too, be it remembered, 
her anxieties for the fate of Constantinople. 

Not sympathy for the Turk has ever moved the heart of 
England, but every movement in connection with Turkey 



142 England's course towards rubsia 

has been made with anxious reference to her Eastern trade. 
It is because she has not been contented to share this com- 
merce with the rest of the world. She has coveted a 
monopoly of its profits, and has been ready with her fleets 
and her armies to prevent any other Power of earth from 
building for itself a highway to India. She has endeavored 
to frustrate the United States in Central America ; she suc- 
ceeded in forcing the French army from Egypt — and she 
has also determined not only to prevent Russia from estab- 
lishing herself at Constantinople, but to wrest from her 
the control of the Black Sea, and prevent her from occu- 
pying the old northern road to the East. 

Let it not be forgotten here that it is not the conquest of 
British India at which Russia is aiming, or which she has 
ever proposed, but to open for herself a commerce with 
northern Asia by a route of her own ; that she proposes 
not war on England, but an honorable competition for the 
trade of Asia; and this England opposed with a war whose 
object was to destroy forever all hope of maritime or com- 
mercial prosperity for Russia, which done, she would hold 
a complete monopoly of the richest commerce of the world, 
while at the same time the manufactures of Russia would be 
ruined, and she would again become dependent on Great 
Britain. 

It is now easy to perceive the real policy of England in 
regard to the proposition made to the British Government 
while Nicholas was in London. He franklv informed Ens;- 
land that the time was near when the Turkish Government 
must inevitably fall, without any external force, that it had 
no vitality, was in fact already seized by death, and that 
he desired some friendly understanding with England as to 
the course to be pursued when that event should come, that 
all of Europe might not then be embroiled, because other 
nations would be constrained to abide by the joint decision 
of England and Russia. It is understood that he proposed 
that England should occupy Egypt, while the control of 
Constantinople should be given to Russia. 

Simply as a bargain between Russia and England, this 



IN REGARD TO THE EASTERN QUESTION. 143 

surely was not an ungenerous offer for Russia. The Czar 
offered to surrender to Great Britain the best of all the 
inland routes to India, the one which gave wealth and 
magnificence to Egypt, and Jerusalem, and Tyre, the one 
re-opened by the genius of Alexander, the one which she 
has long coveted, and to secure which she fought the battle 
of the Nile. It was a proposition which, to all appearance, 
would have made her supreme in the West, holding, as she 
does, Gibraltar, the Mediterranean key. Nor was it need- 
ful for her to be anxious in regard to the hostility of France, 
it would seem, with Russia for her ally. The holy indig- 
nation which England has so abundantly manifested at 
this proposition since war was determined on, was by no 
means aroused when it was first advanced ; on the contrary, 

" THE MINISTRY RECEIVED IT SMILINGLY," then, and " THE 

' Times' wrote leading articles upon the sickness of Tur- 
key." The offer was taken into friendly consideration, and 
sympathy for Turkey was a rare virtue in England. 

It is perfectly clear that the Czar had never received the 
slightest official intimation that his proposal had been un- 
favorably received, and that his confidential communications 
with Sir Hamilton Seymour were but the carrying out, on 
his part, of the design which he had been led to suppose 
was favorably received, and even virtually decided upon by 
the English Government. The Russian Emperor was frank 
and honorable in his dealings with England, and she, on 
the other hand, receiving his advances with marked favor, 
took them into long consideration, pondering in the mean 
time whether even a better bargain might not be effected 
in some other quarter, and so soon as she had decided upon 
a French alliance, endeavored to excite the world against 
Russia for proposing that " atrocious" partition of Turkey, 
which the hightoned honor of England had so decidedly 
rejected, though when presented, ministers had looked all 
smiles, and the Times had written leading articles to prove 
that Turkey was as good as dead, and it was time to deter- 
mine England's share in the property. England at first 
was strongly inclined to favor and accept the proposition 



144 England's course towards Russia 

of Nicholas, and did not perceive its wickedness until the 
newly projected alliance with France. 

Then the cry was opened upon " barbarous Russia" which 
was making war upon civilization, which had piratically 
proposed to divide Turkey, and whose advance must now 
be checked for the salvation of Europe. But this allusion 
to the smiles of ministers and leading articles in the Times 
is by no means the only evidence which shows that the 
English Government was merely playing a part in its 
affected horror at the proposition of Nicholas, and that so 
late as 1854, the Czar had every public assurance that his 
policy was approved, and would be defended by England. 
A few facts will render this point sufficiently clear, while 
they place the British Government in a most unenviable 
position, when compared with the straight-forward frank- 
ness of Nicholas. 

Since 1844, England had been in possession of the pro- 
posal of the Russian Emperor, without a word of disap- 
proval, tacitly consenting. In 1853, when the affairs of the 
East began to wear a threatening aspect, and when Russia 
was assuming a position which showed that she intended 
to resist the intrigues of France, Lord John Russell, on be- 
half of the Government, wrote as follows to the Czar : 

" Her Majesty's Government are persuaded that no course 
of policy can be adopted more wise, more disinterested, and 
more beneficial to Europe, than that which his Imperial 
Majesty has so long followed, and which will render his 
name more illustrious than that of the most famous sover- 
eigns who have sought immortality by unprovoked conquest 
and ephemeral glory." 

In another part of this dispatch are the following remark- 
able words : " The more the Turkish Government adopts 
"the rules of impartial law and equal administration, the 
" less will the Emperor of Russia find it necessary to apply 
" that exceptional protection which his Imperial Majesty has 



IN REGARD TO THE EASTERN QUESTION. 145 

" found so burdensome and inconvenient, though no doubt 

" PRESCRIBED BY DUTY AND SANCTIONED BY TREATY." 

The admission of Lord John Russell in regard to the 
correctness of the Russian interpretation of the treaty of 
Kainardji, does not stand unsupported even by English 
testimony. In a history of the Ottoman Empire, forming 
one of the series of the Ency doped ice, 31etropolitana, pub- 
lished in 1854, is the following account of that treaty. 
" The most fatal condition to the Turkish dominion, and at 
" the same time the most honorable to Russia, was the re- 
" cognition of the latter Power as Protectress of the Mol- 
" davians, the Wallachians, and of the Christians generally 
"in the Sultans dominions. 

At the time this sentence was penned, it is evident that 
the learned authors of that history believed that the claims 
of Russia were properly based upon treaty stipulations, 
although in a closing chapter, written after the declaration 
of war, Russia is denounced for adhering to such an inter- 
pretation of this treaty, though it was previously admitted 
to be just, even by themselves. 

Here is the important concession made by a British min- 
ister in 1853, and by British historians, that Russia was not 
only right in her demands upon Turkey, but that this right 
was already secured by treaty, precisely as Russia declared, 
and as Turkey, instigated by France, directed — England 
then testified that the demands of Russia were just ones, 
and consequently she was not the aggressor in this war. 
She was unjustly attacked, through the influence of Papal 
France, and it is a war in defense of the rights, the terri- 
tory, the faith, and homes of Russia. Nicholas, in his 
conferences with Sir George Seymour, in 1853, said, " We 
" must come to some understanding, and this we should do, 
"I am convinced, if I could hold but ten minutes' con- 
" versation with your ministers. 

" And remember I do not ask for a treaty or a protocol, 

a general understanding is all I require — that, between 

gentlemen, is sufficient." The English Government replied 

through Lord Clarendon as follows, in March : " The gen- 

10 



146 England's course towards Russia 

"erous confidence exhibited by the Emperor entitles hia 
"Imperial Majesty to the most cordial declaration of opinion 
"on the part of her Majesty's Government; who are fully 
" aware that in the event of any understanding with reference 
"to future contingencies being expedient, or indeed pos- 
*' sible, the word of his Imperial Majesty would be preferable 
"to any convention that could be framed." After the 
British fleet had been ordered to the Bosphorus, Lord 
Clarendon informed the Russian minister that the "British 
"fleet had no hostile designs against Russia." 

After the battle of Sinope, the British Government in- 
formed Russia, that "measures will be taken for preventing 
" Turkish ships of war from making descents upon the coast of 
"Russia" In the opening debate of 1854, Lord Aberdeen 
declared " that he saw nothing to find fault with the memo- 
randum (containing the proposal of Nicholas), and that he 
" looked upon it with great satisfaction" Count Nesselrode, 
in a letter to the Russian minister, speaks of "the late con- 
fidential overtures which Sir H. Seymour has been instructed- 
"to make to us," but in the publication of the dispatches 
by the British Government all this was sedulously concealed. 
The whole had been expunged. 

In the light of such disclosures, how will England con- 
vince the world that she has not been guilty of treachery 
to Russia, while Nicholas was honorable keeping faith with 
her? And what shall be thought of her candor or her 
generosity when at the eleventh hour, while Russia Avas 
relying upon her declarations and her honor, having dis- 
covered, as she thought, that she might drive a still better 
bargain by an alliance with France, she deserted the Czar, 
called upon the world to admire the lofty honor that had 
rejected the proposals of Russia, and declared she was has- 
tening to the defense of Turkey, and to protect civilization 
against the barbarism of the North. 

The value of such pretenses can now be estimated at 
their proper worth, especially when we add to what has 
been stated already, the significant declaration of Lord 
Palmerston, that England had designs in this war ulterior 



IN REGARD TO THE EASTERN QUESTION. 147 

to the preservation of Turkey. "What potent argument in the 
way either of menace or of larger spoil was offered at thia 
juncture by the French Government, that induced the 
change in English policy, lies hidden among the secrets of 
diplomacy ; but that there was a sudden change, and that 
Russia was deserted and deceived, is too plain to admit of 
doubt. 

But it may be asked, what explanation can be given of 
the course of England, except upon the supposition that 
she was sincerely indignant at the proposal of Russia, and 
that from truly lofty motives she had undertaken this war 
to defend weak and tottering Turkey against her powerful 
foe? First, it is quite clear that she was not indignant 
when the suggestion was made, nor until she had deter- 
mined that an alliance with France would be more valuable 
than the friendship of Russia ; and second, her polic} 7 is 
more fully explained by another suggestion. England pro- 
poses to herself to become the manufacturer for the world, 
and the chief factor of its commerce. The bearing which 
any settlement of the " Eastern question" may have upon 
this main purpose, is the important one in the opinion of 
English statesmen. 

At first view the possession of Egypt, and the route to 
India by the Isthmus of Suez, would appear all that Eng- 
land could desire, controlling, as in that case she would, 
two main channels to the East. But then a second thought 
will show that with Russia holding the Black Sea and 
Constantinople, together with the mouths of the Danube, 
she might, with the eastern highway by the Caspian and 
the Aral, soon become a formidable rival both in the eastern 
and European markets ; and there would be great danger 
that Constantinople would absorb much of the trade coming 
through the Red Sea. If, therefore, the power of Russia 
could be broken in the Euxine, if her influence at Con- 
stantinople could be destro} 7 ed, and Turkey, as a nominally 
independent Power, made by the free-trade system a mere 
dependency, a province of England, it would be far more 



148 England's course towards russia 

advantageous than if she should gain Egypt, with Russia 
at Constantinople. 

The interests of Turkey have heen no more regarded in 
this whole transaction hy England than by Russia. Both 
Powers have thought only of their own advancement. An- 
other consideration seems to have influenced the English 
cabinet. France was evidently preparing herself for some 
new exhibition upon the theater of nations. She was pro- 
viding herself with a truly formidable navy, and her mili- 
tary arrangements were upon a scale that were significant 
of anything rather than unbroken peace. England was 
made to feel her inferiority to her old foe, in military 
strength ; her ablest commanders pointed out the insecurity 
of her position, should the French Emperor find it neces- 
sary to visit her shores in order to give employment to his 
army ; and the probability of a French invasion was gravely 
discussed. 

When, therefore, a French alliance became possible, it 
was evident that two important objects might be accom- 
plished: that the fleet and army of Louis Napoleon might 
be drawn off from the English shores and their strength 
exhausted, or at least employed elsewhere, and that in addi- 
tion to this securing herself at home, a rival might be 
crippled or crushed abroad. Although the secrets of cabi- 
net councils are not disclosed, yet the actions of the British 
Government indicate that such were the ruling motives 
which led to the rejection of the proposal of Nicholas after 
it had been under consultation since 1844, and the accept- 
ance of the alliance with France. A secondary reason for 
this choice may probably be found in the fact that France 
had already at great cost established herself in Africa, and 
might be disposed at some time, if not immediately, to dis- 
pute with her the possession of Egypt, while Russia at 
Constantinople would be comparatively secure within the 
closed gates of the Dardanelles. 

The fear of the English Government, that France may 
hereafter seize Egypt and Syria, was clearly revealed in the 
debate in Parliament upon the Turkish loan. 



IN REGARD TO THE EASTERN QUESTION. 149 

The proposition which the Czar made to the English 
cabinet is a full disclosure of the main features of his policy. 
He was willing to surrender all claim to Egypt in behalf 
of England, and this of itself is conclusive upon one point, 
that he had no sinister designs upon western Europe, and 
that he desired simply a position from whence he could 
safely prosecute his favorite Eastern policy, and establish 
himself on the road to northern Asia. The right of Russia 
to execute her design is, to say the least, quite as clear as 
that of England to her acquisitions in India, or that of 
France to those provinces of Africa which she has violently 
wrested away. But Russia has not declared war upon Great 
Britain because she has spoiled the East Indian penin- 
sula, nor upon France because of her conquest of Algiers ; 
yet these, but lately mortal foes, allied themselves for an 
assault on Russia because she is pursuing a scheme of 
national aggrandizement, which, in its moral character, is 
certainly no worse than their own. ISTo candid man will 
deny that the Russian Emperor was right when he spoke 
of the dissolution of the Turkish empire as an event not 
only certain, but near. Nor could any one doubt that when 
this should occur it would surely convulse all Europe, unless 
the whole question could be settled by some definite pre- 
vious arrangement. It is difficult, therefore, to discover 
any tiling very atrocious in the frank and open manner in 
which Nicholas brought the subject to the attention of the 
British ministers ; and in his subsequent conversations with 
Sir H. Seymour, England was certainly treated in an honor- 
able manner, whatever may be said of the intention of 
either government in regard to Turkey. 

But let it once be conceded that an unavoidable neces- 
sity of making some disposition of Turkish affairs was near 
at hand, and it will be difficult to show that the course of 
Nicholas was more open to censure than that of the other 
Powers who have made themselves parties to this conflict. 
If it be granted that a radical change was imminent in the 
Ottoman Empire, then it should be remembered that only 
about one-fourth of the inhabitants of that empire are 



150 England's course towards Russia 

Turks, and that no less than twelve millions of them are 
members of the Greek Church, and therefore hound by re- 
ligious affinities to Russia, and inclined toward her also by 
a common Oriental origin, while between these same Greek 
Christians and the Roman Catholic nations of the west, 
there is cherished an irreconcilable and mutual dislike. 

To extend the dominion of Russia over the Turkish Em- 
pire, would be to incorporate twelve millions who are 
already in at least a partial sympathy with her, while with 
either French or English rule would be introduced a differ- 
ent race and a different religion — and with France a religion 
intensely hostile. These circumstances should all be taken 
into consideration in explanation of the demands and pur- 
poses of Russia. They will show that her pretensions in 
this Eastern question have at least as reasonable a founda- 
tion as those of her western rivals. The idea of a regener- 
ation of the Ottoman Empire, with the Turkish element 
predominant, is, in the opinion of the best informed in 
Europe, a mere dream, contrary to every analogy in the 
history of the world, and in the nature of things impossible. 

This will be dwelt upon more in detail hereafter. But, 
assuming here as true what will be proved in another chap- 
ter, that the dominion of the Turk is already virtually over, 
then the twelve millions of Greek Christians will at once 
be the predominant element in the population, and their 
natural affinities lead them to Russia, as the head and 
defender of the Greek Church. This certainly is the case 
with all but the higher clergy, who, from personal ambition, 
would dislike the control of Russia. 

It may be safely asserted that an independent state on 
the present territory of Turkey, composed of Greek Chris- 
tians, could not be maintained by all the power of western 
Europe. France, as a Catholic Power, could maintain no 
influence there except by force of arms — the influence of 
the conqueror over the conquered — and England, as the 
ally of a Papal Power, made herself obnoxious to the whole 
Greek Church, which regards this war as, in fact, a relig- 
ious quarrel. The attempt to erect within the limits of 



IN REGARD TO THE EASTERN QUESTION. 151 

Turkey an independent Christian state, considering the ele- 
ments that must compose it, would necessarily end either 
in its speedy incorporation with Russia or in a continual 
war, for the very same reasons which have originated the 
former struggle. 

The single fact that fifty millions in the Russian Empire 
belong to the Greek rite, and that twelve millions in Tur- 
key are of the same faith, is sufficient to show how the 
Eastern question will be finally settled. And to prove that 
the demands of Russia are by no means so preposterous 
and unjust as France and England would have the world 
believe, let it be supposed that twelve millions of evangeli- 
cal Protestants, allied to the Americans by race aud relig- 
ious faith, were, for the present, held in subjection by five 
millions of Mexicans, and that this Mexican rule was weak 
and tottering— about to fall — would France or England be 
allowed to prevent these twelve millions from being incor- 
porated with the United States ? Would this Government 
permit these to be made an independent state even under 
French or English dictation, that it might be interposed 
between us and the West India islands and South America, 
hold us within such limits as they should prescribe, and so 
preserve here the balance of power 1 

It is quite evident that there could be but one settlement 
of such a question. The very existence of this Union would 
depend upon the continent being freed from any such for- 
eign control. Every American would declare that the free 
development of the country should go on without let or 
hindrance from any others, whose only interest in the mat- 
ter would be that of checking our too rapid advance, and 
keeping us to their own level of power. 

This, in principle, is the very movement which we are 
called upon to meet in the French occupation of Mexico. 
The Emperor declares without reserve that he has seized it 
to interrupt and prevent the future growth of the Republic, 
and that this interference is in behalf of the Latin race, 
and we cannot safely forget that England declared herself 
to be in perfect accord with France in regard to American 



152 England's course towards russia. 

affairs, and that the French and English fleets were united 
in the expedition to Mexico. Louis Napoleon has explained 
his policy in words. Had English statesmen done the same 
the record in substance would have been this : " Our trans- 
atlantic cousins are becoming too powerful, they must be 
" taken down. They are pressing hard on Mexico, having 
" already absorbed some of her finest provinces ; and they 
" will soon wrest Cuba from Spain, and so obtain control of 
" the West Indian seas ; and they are moreover construct- 
" ing a railway to the Pacific that may endanger our East- 
" ern trade, while at the same time they are building up a 
"manufacturing system which will render them independent 
" of our workshops, and enable them to meet us in the 
" markets of the world, and we must therefore sever this 
" Union or enable the rebels to do it ; we must help the 
" Confederates to annihilate their commerce, force their 
" carrying trade into our own ships, and effectually cripple 
" their power." Thus the " Eastern Question" shows that 
it has a "Western phase also, and the Alliance, as Lord Pal- 
merston declared, had designs " ulterior to the preservation 
" of Turkey." 



TURKEY A COLONIAL DEPENDENCY. .153 



CHAPTER XIV. 



HAD THE ALLIES FULLY SUCCEEDED IN THE ATTACK ON RUSSIA THEY 
WOULD HAVE HELD TURKEY AS A COLONIAL DEPENDENCY, AS ENGLAND 
HOLDS INDIA, AND AS FRANCE INTENDS TO DEAL WITH MEXICO. 



Only about one-fourth part of the population of the Otto- 
man Empire are Turks, and these, as masters, hold the 
remaining three-fourths in subjection, treating them as an 
inferior caste, just in proportion as they are not restrained 
by a fear of European Powers. A very large proportion 
of this subject class, perhaps fourteen millions, bear the 
Christian name. This fact alone would be sufficient to 
show that the days of Turkish dominion are numbered. 

These millions of Christians could not be compelled much 
longer to endure the broken yoke of the Mussulman, and 
the Emperor of Russia only presented a most obvious fact 
to the English cabinet, when he intimated that it would 
be wise to make some proper provision for the approaching 
change. It was, however, urged, both in England and by 
those who sympathized with England here, that although 
the power of the Sultan may be annihilated, and Turkey 
proper disappear, still on the territory of the Porte a Chris- 
tian State may be established, which, under the protection 
of the Western Powers, may give a Christian civilization 



154 TUKKEY A COLONIAL DEPENDENCY, 

to the East, while barbarism and oppression would be the 
result of the occupation of Russia. Thus it was declared 
that the war was one of Christian civilization against the 
barbarous fanaticism of the North. This opinion swayed 
many Christian minds in this country, who dreamed of free 
Christian states, perhaps republics, dotting all the East, 
under the protection of England. 

It is not very difficult, certainly not impossible, to form 
an opinion of what the result of France and English domi- 
nion would be if extended over the East. Their position, 
and wants, together with their past conduct and present 
policy, surely afford the data for an accurate judgment of 
the future. 

No one certainly is credulous enough to suppose that 
either of these Powers was carrying on war merely to deliver 
the oppressed, or to promote in any way the general wel- 
fare of mankind, unless at the same time their own interests 
were in some way to be advanced, or their own ambition 
to be gratified. To build upon Eastern soil such a nation 
or nations as France and England now are, rivals of them- 
selves in wealth, civilization and power, to restore in short, 
to the East its old prosperity, and infuse an independent 
life into states to be erected there : this was not in all their 
thoughts. 

Nay, more, such a result is not only contrary to every 
feature of their policy, but for no purpose would both Eng- 
land and France put their fleets and armies in motion 
sooner, than to forbid and prevent the interposition between 
themselves and eastern and northern Asia, of powerful and 
independent states. Such a nation as the United States, if 
one could arise there, would be attacked by the western 
Powers, for far more urgent reasons than have moved them 
to the war on Russia. In order to predict the results of 
French and English rule in these regions, it is only neces- 
sary to study these governments as they are, and in the light 
of their history. 

In the very outset of such an investigation, a fact is pre- 
sented whose importance settles all. Neither France nor 



HAD THE ATTACK ON RUSSIA SUCCEEDED. 155 

England can hold any territory outside of their present 
home limits except as colonial dependencies, and this deter- 
mines of course the policy of the government in regard to 
them. Neither of these Powers desire, or would ever per- 
mit independent, self-developing communities in the East, 
but dependencies only, in fact if not in form, from which 
tribute could be in some manner gathered for the govern- 
ment and country at home. The object of these now Allied 
Powers is to manufacture for all other nations, and to con- 
trol for themselves the commerce of the world. What they 
require then is raw material for their mills, and markets 
for their products. 

Let it be remembered that the rule of France or England 
over the East must be essentially that of a foreign Power, 
whatever the relation might be. There are no affinities of 
race or religion which might produce or cement a union, 
but, on the contrary, there are violent antipathies, especi- 
ally in regard to France, which are not to be removed, or 
even controlled, except by the arm of power. The con- 
nection between races thus politically united can be of one 
kind only — that of masters and dependents. In similar 
cases, then, what have been the results ? What is the effect 
of English dominion upon the one hundred and fifty mil- 
lions which she governs in the East already ? Turkey and 
the adjacent regions may learn a lesson from British India. 
From the Merchants' Magazine, than which there is no 
better authority either here or in Europe, the following 
statistical information has been derived, which will show 
how India stands related to Great Britain, and how she is 
affected by her rule : 

" During the last fifteen years, there has been accruing 
from this effeminate people the vast sum of £340,760,000, 
of which sum but £5,000,000 have been spent in public 
improvements. Its revenue in India is twenty-seven mil- 
lion pounds, of which but sixty thousand pounds are spent 
for the education of children. Its military expenditures, 
in 1839, were eight millions pounds ; in 1852, twelve mil- 



156 TUKKEY A COLONIAL DEPENDENCY 

lions pounds, or about forty-six per cent, of the whole 
revenue. The taxes on the lands amount to twelve millions 
pounds annually, averaging from sixty to ninety per cent, 
of the whole production of the soil. Wages of a laborer 
from six to eight cents a day. Salt is not allowed to be manu- 
factured, and every pound consumed pays three-fourths of a 
penny, tax." 

In addition to other articles, India can produce more 
opium than Europe consumes, and therefore England sends 
a fleet and army to China, and says, " You must buy from 
" me so much opium each year, or I shall lay your com- 
" mercial towns in ashes." China replied that this poison 
was ruining her subjects, body and soul, and that she had 
no need of opium, indeed, would be in every respect hap- 
pier and more prosperous without it. England's answer 
was, " I must realize a certain sum from my opium ; it can 
" not be done unless you buy, and buy you must. Here 
" am I, with shotted guns and matches lighted." 

This is a sample of the colonial policy of England, and 
this is the prosperity and civilization which she confers 
upon her present possessions in the East. Such, modified 
only by circumstances, is her governmental scheme for 
colonies. 

Colonial policy, as a whole, may be regarded as a system 
designed to convey to the coffers of the home or ruling 
country the largest possible amount of treasure, with the 
least possible expenditure. England needs colonies to raise 
her raw material and grain for her workmen, and for these 
she wishes to pay with her manufactured products, at prices 
secured by a monopoly of the trade. 

This would be the governing principle of her policy, as 
well as of France, if they should gain control of Turkey, 
and the regions around the Euxine and the Caspian. It 
would be there, as in India, a system of oppression and 
exhausting demands. These countries would be allowed 
to produce nothing which could be supplied by the ruling 
race. 



HAD THE ATTACK ON RUSSIA SUCCEEDED. 157 

Turkey would possess neither manufactures nor an inde- 
pendent commerce, and consequently neither a high state 
of civilization nor wealth. She would be confined to agri- 
cultural labor, with wages at the minimum rate, to be paid 
for by inferior goods at such prices as can be maintained 
where competition is not allowed. Even now, England ab- 
sorbs thirty-seven per cent, of the whole commerce of 
Turkey, and she derives from thence one-fourth part of 
all the grain that is imported for her operatives. Hence 
her anxiety concerning the occupancy of the Danubian 
provinces. 

The term colonial policy is used here because, as has 
been stated already, whatever external political form the 
relation between the East and western Powers might as- 
sume, it would be virtually one of colonial dependency, be- 
cause this is absolutely required by the commercial interests 
involved. 

Lamartine has declared that England would sacrifice all 
Europe to her commerce, and the remark finds its reason 
in her history. If any are disposed to believe that India 
should not be cited as a fair example of her policy, let him 
consult our own colonial history, and observe the systematic 
and oppressive course pursued by the mother country to 
repress manufactures and commerce here, loading us with 
restrictions and prohibitions, and discouraging every de- 
scription of industrial effort which looked either to inde- 
pendent existence, or to the production of anything which 
England could make or buy for us with her goods, and 
grasping the profits of our carrying trade by compelling a 
re-shipment in England of our exports to foreign countries. 
"What an able writer has said in regard to France and her 
relations to the East, her designs upon Turkey, illustrates 
with entire accuracy the policy of the western Powers. 
Having stated that up to 1842 France desired the decay 
and dismemberment of Turkey, he proceeds : 

" The question recurs, Why has she changed her policy, 
and why to-day does she help to rivet the chains by which 



158 TURKEY A COLONIAL DEPENDENCY, 

twelve millions of Christians are made the slaves of a single 
Turk ? "We answer at once, it is not the holy principles 
of justice, honor, and right, but the desire of commercial 
supremacy, that leads her to attempt to stifle the cry of 
millions for the blessings of civilization, manufactures and 
commerce. 

" To prove this, let us examine the nature of the trade 
with Turkey, and also its amount. By these tables (the 
details are omitted here) it will be seen at once that the 
trade of Turkey gives employment to a ninth part of the 
mercantile marine of France ; that it consumes her manu- 
factures to the amount of twenty-seven million francs, and 
above all, furnishes her with a raw commodity that is the 
basis of her manufactures, and upon the supply of which 
depends the prosperity of her cities and people. In addi- 
tion to this, the increase of her manufactures is diminishing 
her capability of producing grain enough to feed them, 
and the failure of a single crop of grain might precipitate 
the nation into a revolution. 

" The care of its present rulers, who are never too firmly 
seated, is to provide labor and food for the people. Now, 
the raw materials and provisions must come from countries 
where manufactures have no hold, and all are producers. 
Prior to 1830, and even to 1840, Russia was one of the 
nations which could supply her, and in all probability 
would for years to come, to any extent in case of emer- 
gency. But Russia prohibited her manufactures in order to 
encourage her own, and a single stroke of the Czar's pen 
could drive her peasants into rebellion." 

Here, let it be remarked, is the true cause of this war, 
aside from its religious features and the Papal ambition. 
Russia had been to England and France only as a huge 
agricultural colony, supplying them with grain and raw 
commodities, and receiving in return their goods. Tired 
of this dependent life, which the Russian statesmen, and 
more especially the comprehensive mind of Nicholas saw, 
could never result in a real civilization, it was determined 



HAD THE ATTACK ON RUSSIA SUCCEEDED. 159 

to build up for Russia a manufacturing and commercial 
system of her own. 

If she succeeds, she will not only consume her own raw 
commodities and her grain at home, but with her manufac- 
tures she will meet France and England in the markets of 
the world. To prevent this independent growth, to repress 
the expanding life and civilization of a sister nation, France 
and England have taken up arms. It is a war whose de- 
sign is to hold Russia in a dependent and semi-barbarous 
state, as a mere producer of raw commodities, and Russia 
is fighting for independence and the right of self-develop- 
ment ; while Jesuitism has taken advantage of commercial 
interest to involve the world, and crush if possible the 
great rival of the Papacy. 

The writer already quoted goes on to say : " Turkey 
"alone could be made to subserve her ends. She would 
" receive her manufactures at three per cent., and pay for 
" them in that raw commodity so necessary to France, and 
"then in addition to this, the rich fields of Moldavia and 
" Wallachia were loaded with grain waiting to be borne 
"to a hungry people. As Lamartine remarks, Turkey is a 
" necessity to the existence of France. 

" Let civilization with its magic power once be felt upon 
her soil, and a Christian population would make the whole 
nation resound with the sound of industry and manufac- 
tures ; she would become the consumer of her own products 
and raw material, and as a direct result, diminish the power 
of France." Speaking of the Crimean war he proceeds as 
follows — it would be well if every American would listen 
to his words : 

•'The war they (the Allies) are now waging is not to save 
Turkey, but to cripple and destroy the commercial pros- 
perity of Russia. They have combined to set bounds to 
the progress of a nation that first opened to them and their 
merchant-fleets the whole commerce of the Black Sea, and 
which poured out the blood of her children like water in 
order to wring from the barbarous Turk that great boon 



160 TURKEY A COLONIAL DEPENDENCY, 

to trade and commerce. Both, are leagued together that 
they may monopolize the commerce of Europe and destroy 
the commerce and manufactures of Russia. If they suc- 
ceed in this case, to whom, let us inquire, will they next 
prescribe the limits of their possessions and the amount of 
their trade ? Who appointed them to set limits to the pro- 
gress of nations and the amount of their commerce ? For 
we must never forget that if France and England possess 
the right to set bounds to the expansion of Russia, they 
possess also the same right in regard to us. Are we told 
that they are warring to preserve the integrity of an 
empire ? 

" Who but these Powers robbed Turkey of Greece, and 
threatened by force of arms to prevent Russia from aiding 
the Sultan from bringing Mohammed Ali under subjection, 
and thus save a flourishing state to the Empire ? Hear the 
official order of the British Government upon this topic of 
the integrity of Turkey: 'To maintain the integrity of 

* the Ottoman Empire in the sense sometimes attributed to 
' the phrase can never be a political duty, for the simple 
' reason that it is a political impossibility. Europe has been 

* maintaining this fabric for nearly a century ; and how has 
' it been maintained ? 

" ' Half its dominions have been lost. Algiers, Egypt, 
Greece, the Archipelago, and Bessarabia, were once por- 
tion of the Ottoman Empire. To what governments do 
they pertain now ? What justice did Turkey receive at 
the hands of Europe when the Porte was excluded from 
the provisions of 1815? when the Greek insurgents were 
protected by the Allies against their legitimate mother? 
when the Sultan was compelled by the five Powers not 
only to pardon a rebellious vassal that had threatened the 
very throne of Ottoman, but to confirm this rebel in the 
hereditary possession of his Pachalic ? In every instance 
of intervention which has occurred since the decline of the 
Turkish Empire, the interposing States have enforced con- 
clusions theoretically irreconcilable with the rights of an 



HAD THE ATTACK ON RUSSIA SUCCEEDED. 161 

independent monarchy. Nor could it possibly be other- 
wise. 

" ' The plain truth is, that a dominion so universally 
ruinous and unnatural could not really be maintained in 
its integrity ; nor can all the Powers of Europe do more 
than mitigate the successive symptoms of decay, and avert 
by prudent concert the consequences of a violent catastrophe.' 
Such is the testimony of an organ that controls the public 
opinion of England, and speaks the sentiments of its min- 
istry." 

This was its language while England was considering the 
proposition of Nicholas, ere it was thought that a more 
profitable connection could be formed with France, and 
while England thought equally with the Emperor of Russia, 
that the consequences of the sudden fall of Turkey ought 
to be averted by "prudent concert" the very course Nicho- 
las proposed. 

"What," continues this writer, "was the declaration 
afterward ? They asserted that they were sick of talking 
about upholding Turkey, and they were warring against 
Russia to prevent her from reaching the Bosphorus. At- 
tempt to disguise the fact as we may, it is a war in behalf 
of barbarism, at the expense of civilization, and incited by 
a nation that has robbed India of every right she ever pos- 
sessed, destroyed her manufactures, starved her people, and 
plundered her treasures; the other Power robbed Algiers 
from the Empire, obtained by means of fraud its ablest 
defender, and to crown their claim to honor, burned in 
caves the men who dared to defend their native soil. 

" When France occupied Algiers, she said it was but a 
counterpoise to England's Malta. Now, the two Powers 
combine to forever exclude Russia from that sea to which 
she has the- same right as they. The entente cordiale exist- 
ing between them is dangerous to every commercial nation, 
for it is based upon an understanding that no nation that 
they consider capable of being their rival in commerce and 
11 



162 TURKEY A COLONIAL DEPENDENCY, 

trade shall extend its power beyond the limits they fix. 
To-day the United States may feel indifferent as to the 
result of the contest, but it affects our own security and 
prosperity as a commercial nation. Let us remember that 
for years England claimed the right to exclude us from the 
East India trade. But she then lacked allies. To-day we 
have obtained a foothold for our manufactures even in 
Persia, where she sends yearly a million pounds worth. If 
she can check Russia in her march to the ocean, then she 
can summon us to leave the Persian Gulf, for now she has 
an ally as grasping as herself. 

" She can impress our seamen and search our vessels, 
for she has declared, by her agent, and that lately, since 
this war commenced, that while she assented to the declar- 
ation of Denmark's and Sweden's neutrality, she did not 
relinquish her right of search, nor retract her former defi- 
nition as to the rights of neutrals. [These demands caused 
the war of 1812.] ISTo American can be indifferent to the 
result of this war. It affects us as an expansive, acquiring 
and commercial people ; it affects us as a liberty-loving 
and independent nation ; for if it succeeds in drying up the 
streams of a mighty nation's manufactures and trade, it 
will check in it the development of civilization, the intelli- 
gence of the masses, and their approach to independence." 

No more truthful words than these have been spoken in 
America, even, concerning that selfish and ungenerous war. 
How plain, in this light, appears Lord Clarendon's declara- 
tion, that the Alliance between France and England was 
intended to control the affairs of both hemispheres; how 
significant the threats borne occasionally from France and 
England that fleets shall winter in the "West Indian seas, 
and that any vagaries of ours will be duly corrected, such 
as a disposition to possess ourselves of Cuba, or any other 
scheme not approved of by the self-appointed regulating 
Powers. 

Before dismissing this part of the subject, it may not be 
amiss to add to what has already been said concerning the 
preservation of the Turkish Empire, the opinion of the 



HAD THE ATTACK ON RUSSIA SUCCEEDED. 163 

Edinburgh Review, in 1836, before opinions and policy had 
been warped by a French Alliance : P y 

beZTfr 8 ^ Je f,° USieS ° f RuSsia have been Emulated 
beyond the reasonable pitch, while in order to afford an 

imaginary counterpoise, we have been called upon to etert 
our utmost energies in preserving the Turkish Empire 
To encourage us m so quixotic an enterprise, every effort 
has Wn made to paint the Turks as employed in throw, ' 
off the weight of centuries of bigotry and mismanagement 
S — M "* ^ —»* * -formifgS 

JIZT ""-I heSitate t0 6XpreSS 0ur «W^ofl«m that of 

TurS E ' 1S ° ne ° f the « reatest to «P«* that the 
Turkish Empire can or will be long maintained in its pre- 
sent shape, bolstered up, as it is , by foreign eupport / ^ 

Now, England calls on all the world to execrate the 
name and memory of Nicholas, because, in 1844, hT made 
the same declaration to England, and invited her as a mat! 
ter of precaution, to provide for the result-a uggestion 

The Seview, of 1836, proceeds as follows : 

" History offers no one instance of an empire which, after 

s strength and smews have moldered away, has recovered 

«,em again by the mere quiet process of internal im" 

tie Mo, ' T We r St ° P *° 8h ° Wh0w absoIute a barrier 
the Mohammedan religion presents between the Turks and 

European civilization.; how utterly impossible it is for a 

state not Christian to enter on equal terms into the civil 

commonwealth of Christendom. But apart from such 

genera considerations, no one who has seriously observed 

the national character and peculiar policy of the Turks can 

rn.ag.ne the possibility of an empire possessed of European 

strength and concentration, composed of them alone or in 

conjunction with subject nations. 



164 TUKKEY A COLONIAL DEPENDENCY, 

" They do not build, but destroy, They show no wish 
to adorn the soil which they inhabit, or connect in any way 
the existence of the present generation with posterity. 
Their object in this world seems to be mere animal exist- 
ence, as completely as that of the beasts of the field." 

From what has been presented two conclusions seem to 
be inevitable: first, that the Turkish Empire, as such, can 
not be maintained, and that its preservation forms no part 
of the policy of the Allied Powers, except as a mere depend- 
ency of their own ; and, second, that whatever change may 
occur in the form of the government, the settled policy of 
France and England requires that the lands of Turkey 
should form merely a vast plantation, worked for the bene- 
fit of its masters. 

It may well be asked, therefore, and not without some 
anxiety, what benefits will the world at large receive, and 
how will the interests of the United States be affected, if 
the colonial policy of the Allied Powers is extended over 
Turkey, and if their fleets should control the Mediterranean 
and the Black Sea? If the yoke of the Ottoman Power 
could be broken off from the Christian population of the 
Empire, and they be not only permitted but encouraged to 
enter upon an independent career, and all the resources of 
that glorious land could be made available by the power 
of a true Christian civilization ; then, indeed, there might 
be reason for rejoicing if the march of Russia could be 
arrested. 

But in the present condition of Europe this can not be. 
England and France have chosen to terminate that arrange- 
ment by which the Porte might have tottered on yet longer 
in a state of merely nominal independence, and the only 
question now remaining is, by whom shall Turkey here- 
after be exclusively controlled — by the East or the West ? 
Another inquiry may be added : will it be better for other 
nations, and for Turkey, that it should become virtually a 
colony of the Western Powers, or that it should be incor- 



HAD THE ATTACK ON RUSSIA SUCCEEDED. I05 

porated with Russia ? Between these two alternatives there 
seems now no middle ground. 

^ Nothing is more certain than that France and England 
intend to apply the principles of the Russian policy to the 
western hemisphere, and they have seized upon the rebellion 
as the entering wedge in American affairs. Could they 
succeed, Mexico would first of all be shaped into a French 
colony in reality, whatever the forms of the government 
might be. Maximilian, if once seated there, would be 
simply a crowned puppet— the imperial overseer of a French 
plantation. 

Texas would then be seized on the first pretext, and 
gradually the South, if nominally independent, would be- 
come merely a colony to raise cotton, sugar, &c, for the 
Allies, and the Pacific coast would if possible be wrested 
from our possession. 

The policy of France and England contemplates all this 
and all this we have good reason to believe was included in 
the original scheme of the Anglo-French Alliance. It was 
against America as well as Russia. It had, as English 
statesmen said, reference to both hemispheres. 

Our great war for national independence is yet to come 
and God is ridding us of our weakness, and bringing out 
our resources, and consolidating our strength, that we°may 
be prepared. The question whether we are to be subjected 
to the dictation of European Powers is yet to be settled 



166 THERE SnOULD BE AN AMERICAN OPINION OF RUSSIA. 



CHAPTER XY. 



THERE SHOULD BE AN AMERICAN OPINION OF RUSSIA. 

Although Russia has become the most powerful nation 
of Europe, she remains in great degree unknown. Her 
advance upon Europe and the East has been as steady, as 
resistless, as mysterious, as the descent of a glacier from the 
Alps. All the force of earth can neither turn the glacier 
backward, nor divert it from its course, nor even arrest its 
progress ; nor can science full} 7 explain the force that pushes 
forward the enormous mass. There remains, however, the 
fact, that year by year it encroaches more and more upon 
the valley below. Each summer melts off a little of its 
solid front, but still the icy boundary of to-day is beyond 
the line on which it rested a year ago. 

So with Russia. Her colossal proportions are expanding 
still, her frontier line is moving on, plowing its way like 
the edge of the glacier through all obstacles, and though 
we hear continually of losses she incurs, and of defeats 
which she suffers, we find that notwithstanding all, she has 
been moving on, and has established herself in new pos- 
sessions, at the very moment when the rest of Europe was 
rejoicing over her supposed discomfiture. Statesmen, polit- 



THERE SHOULD BE AN AMERICAN OriNION OF RUSSIA. 167 

ical economists, even historians, give no adequate explana- 
tion of this overshadowing phenomenon, no satisfactory 
account of the interior life which is thus forcing the nations 
aside to make room for the growth of Russia. Europe 
sneers at the horde of northern barharians, but then she 
saw the best appointed army and the ablest commander of 
modern times utterly crushed by them, and hurled in bro- 
ken fragments over their frontier, and this, too, when up 
to the startling result, it was declared that Russia was 
beaten in every battle, that her capital was taken, and the 
Empire was ruined. At the commencement of the Crimean 
war, we were informed that Russia was exhausted by her 
disasters in the Caucasus, that a small tribe there was suffi- 
cient to hold her power at bay, that she had no money 
wherewith to prosecute a war, that her army was formid- 
able only on paper, scattered through her vast territory in 
disconnected detachments, incapable of combined action; 
and many believed and asserted that Turkey alone was an 
overmatch for her foe ; and yet a formidable English fleet 
spent two summers in the Baltic without daring to look 
upon Cronstadt, and the most formidable armament that 
the world perhaps ever saw, spent its force and exhausted 
its skill for two years in vain upon a single Russian outpost. 
England and France met not the unwieldy, stupid, almost 
helpless giant which they have loved to describe and call 
Russia, but the living power of a great nation, whose power 
has been wielded with a skill and energy at least equal to 
to their own. 

Russia has made no great and sudden conquests in 
Europe; she has poured no living deluge abroad for the 
desolation of the world — a tide whose ebb follows quickly 
after the swell of the flood ; but she is the more formidable 
for that very reason. She groics. Her progress follows the 
law of a life, and its development is after the model of a 
national idea. Herein lies her strength; and the power of 
this life, yet young and vigorous, will carry her far into the 
future. 

Until recently, the Empire of the Czars has awakened 



168 THERE SHOULD BE AN AMERICAN OPINION OF RUSSIA. 

very little attention or sympathy in the American mind. 
Its remote position, and the channels through which we 
have obtained our scanty information, have prevented us 
from forming any correct and well-defined idea of its pros- 
pects, resources and policy. Most Americans have been 
led to think of Russia as a land of almost perpetual snow 
and frost, of interminable forests, or uninhabitable plains, 
and few perhaps have asked themselves, how in such frozen 
wastes and forest solitudes, seventy millions of people have 
not only contrived to exist, but have grown up into the 
most formidable nation of Europe. Again, thousands re- 
gard her as an assemblage of boisterous hordes, having no 
common life or bond, held together by the power of a mili- 
tary despotism, and ruled over by a half-savage tyrant. 
Few have been led to inquire how, upon such a supposition, 
we are to account for her rapid and steady advance to the 
foremost position of the eastern world. It would not be 
easy for a semi-barbarous people, with merely a military 
tyrant at their head, to reach so eminent a station by the 
very side of the civilization of western Europe, and in com- 
petition with such powers as England, France, and Austria. 
The national policy of Russia has been represented to Europe 
and America under the single idea of a perpetual longing 
to rush on Turkey, and seize upon Constantinople. Nearly 
all else has been vailed from view. The true character of 
this policy and its real objects have been but partially un- 
derstood. Russia has, moreover, been viewed with dislike 
or indifference by Americans, because of the form of her 
government, and her supposed hatred of a liberal and repub- 
lican policy. She has been regarded as the determined foe 
of the rights of man ; as neither desiring for herself, nor 
willing to admit in others, any other form of civilization 
than such as may be produced by an absolute military des- 
potism. It has been supposed that Russia and America 
are the true opposites and even antagonists of each other, 
the one representing a half-civilized oriental despotism, the 
other rational republicanism. The thought once scarce 
entered the American mind that a mutual regard might 



THERE SHOULD BE AN AMERICAN OPINION CF RUSSIA. 169 

spring up between the two Powers, and that they may yet 
become the friendly representatives of the two leading ideas 
of the world. 

It is quite evident that the popular opinion of the great 
Northern Power, does not correspond either with her past 
history or her present position. Her power and resources 
have been underrated even in Europe. France and Eng- 
land have miscalculated the strength of their antagonist. 
Europe has misjudged her, because the sources of her vitality 
are but imperfectly known. Yet it is manifest that she has 
interior springs, whose copious flow supplies a broad and 
steady stream of national life. Russia presents every ex- 
ternal sign of a living organism — not merely an aggregation 
of tribes, of fragments bound into a mass by present cir- 
cumstances, which in any important change may fall 
asunder. The resistance which, in 1812, she offered to 
western Europe, Avas that of an organized body, animated 
by a national life. There was a national heart beating with 
hot enthusiasm in the midst of her snows; there was a 
national feeling smarting under a national wound ; there 
was unyielding resolution — ready to sacrifice all things for 
the preservation of their country, determined to make of 
that country a desert, if the invader could not be otherwise 
expelled ; and it was the result of a living force that at last 
swept her foes away. It was not a subdued or dispirited 
people, not a people fired with no love of country, that 
pressed upon and bore down the retreating forces of Bona- 
parte. Since that period there has been a steady enlarge- 
ment and increase oi vigor, as by growth from a strong 
central life. 



170 THE ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS OF NATIONAL POWER. 



CHAPTER XVI. 



THE ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS OF NATIONAL POWER. 

In this age of the world, when civilization, instead of 
being confined to a single luminous point, is diffused over 
so large a portion of the world's surface, and a universal 
empire is no longer possible, there are certain conditions 
without which no great nation can come into existence — 
certain elements of strength necessary to procure for a 
people the first rank among the Powers of earth. The first 
of these conditions is an extensive territory. In the midst 
of the powerful kingdoms of modern times, no petty state, 
with limited domain, could exercise any important sway. 
Greece, placed on her ancient territorial footing, and pos- 
sessed again of her former resources, would now be but a 
" little one" among the nations. Egypt could not now 
sway the world's sceptre from the valley of the Nile, nor 
could old Chaldea be in this age the " Lady of Kingdoms." 
Even if Rome should arise once more, possessed of all her 
Italian and Eastern power, leaving Russia, France, Eng- 
land, and the German states, as they now are, she would 
no longer be the mistress of the world. To hold rank 
among the present " great Powers" of Europe, a territory 
is required, capable of sustaining a population of at least 



THE ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS OF NATIONAL POWER. 171 

thirty millions with the ordinary cultivation and modes of 
life, and therefore the " four great Powers" must remain at 
the head of affairs. But it is easy to see that if any one of 
these should possess a territory capable of supporting a 
population equal to that of France, England, and Austria, 
combined, without being more densely peopled than they 
now are, then, other things being equal, such a power 
would hold all Europe at her control, because all know 
that the other remaining nations could not be consolidated 
into a permanent union, though they may become allies in 
an hour of danger. 

In estimating, therefore, the future position of the present 
powers of earth, extent of territory and capacity for popu- 
lation must be the basis of the calculation ; for a state of 
thirty millions, of to-day, may, in a few years, stand in the 
presence of another with one hundred millions of people. 
But there must be not only extent of territory, but it must 
be so situated as to be easily and safely controlled by one 
central government. It is evident that India, Canada, and 
Australia add little to the effective strength of England. 
In proportion as they wax strong and prosperous will their 
sympathy with the home government be weakened ; and 
therefore England, even with her great possessions, may be 
regarded as having reached the zenith of her power — be- 
cause she can not construct from her separated dependencies 
one consolidated dominion. When it is said, however, that 
she has reached her culminating point, the meaning is not 
that she is now destined to an absolute decline; it is not 
necessary, even, to suppose that she will make no progress 
hereafter, but if another Power shall soon appear in Europe, 
with one hundred millions of people, with a common 
nationality, occupying one connected territory, and directed 
by one sufficiently strong central government ; if, indeed, 
such an one has already taken its position on the theatre 
of Europe, then, not only England, but France and Austria, 
may be regarded as having passed the height of their in- 
fluence, though their absolute power may yet continue to 
increase. Against such a Power, the balance could not long 



172 THE ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS OF NATIONAL POWER. 

be preserved by any combination of western Europe. More- 
over, to secure national greatness, based upon national 
independence, the territory of a people should stretch 
through so many degrees of latitude, and should embrace 
such a variety of position and climate as to procure within 
itself the main productions of the globe. In this respect, 
neither England, France, nor Austria, are so situated as to 
remain the very foremost nations of the world, though 
France and England, but especially the latter, have thus far 
been able to supply the deficiency by a command of the 
open commerce of the globe. But it is easy to perceive, 
that, in case of long-continued war, or if other states should 
adopt a restricted commercial policy, every nation incap- 
able of extensive home production, would suffer severely, 
and perhaps be permanently crippled. A nation then, to 
become not only great, but independent and secure, must 
possess the means of a self-sustaining life, and this can only 
be when its territory stretches through several degrees of 
latitude. 

Again, this territory must possess the means, natural or 
artificial, of free and extensive internal communication. 
Large lakes, or a chain of inland seas, and navigable rivers, 
will probably always afford the most important and cheapest 
channels for commercial exchanges, and a country thus 
furnished by the Creator will possess great advantages over 
one not thus favored ; for, although modern science has 
put it in the power of any people to supply an adequate 
means of cheap and rapid transit, yet navigable rivers, and 
internal lakes and seas, are an additional advantage, con- 
ferring a superiority upon the nation possessing them. 
Any country may be traversed by rail roads, but when, in 
addition to these, God has scooped out the rivers and beds 
of navigable waters, there is a double system and a double 
advantage. Inasmuch, therefore, as God has designed the 
earth as the theater of national life, we are led to believe 
that those great divisions of its surface which are provided 
with adequate systems of lakes and navigable rivers, bring- 
ing all parts into connection with each other, were thua 



THE ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS OF NATIONAL POWER. 173 

constructed in order to become the seats of national power, 
and even though such a territory may be now unoccupied, 
or but thinly inhabited, we are assured that the design 
of God will be accomplished. The future of America may, 
for this reason, be correctly inferred from the structure of 
its territory, although large portions of it are lying waste, 
without an inhabitant; and if we would form an opinion 
of the prospects of Russia, we must study her systems of 
rivers, and her general means of carrying on an interior 
trade, by which her remote provinces may be united by 
common interests, and bound to a common head. 

Moreover, since modern skill and science have converted 
the seas into the great thoroughfares of the world, no nation 
with an interior position can hereafter hold the first rank 
among the powers of earth. The great nation of the future 
must have free access to the ocean — must not only hold 
free communication with the sea from all points, but must 
possess sufficient and convenient harbors as commercial 
marts, and depots of maritime power. 

The admirable position of England, in the midst of the 
seas, has given free scope to the genius of her people, and 
enabled her to exert a controlling influence upon the affairs 
of nations ; but should a nation arise in Europe, with a 
population many times greater than her own — equal in 
intelligence and skill — with a proportionate control of the 
ocean — in that case England, though still prosperous and 
advancing, would hold but a secondary position ; and this 
would be equally true both of Austria and France. Whether 
there is a probability of the rise of such an empire, will be 
one of the questions to be discussed in these pages. 

Again, a nation will be great and powerful, other things 
being equal, in proportion as its growth is the progress of 
a single race, instead of a mere aggregation of dissimilar 
communities, brought by conquest under the dominion of a 
single head. The one is a dead mass, tending ever to disso- 
lution ; the other is an animate body, unfolding a life, and 
tending toward maturity. Every mighty nation of earth 
has become great through the central life-power of one 



174 THE ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS OF NATIONAL POWER. 

dominant race ; and the growth of power has been steady 
so long as there was sufficient vitality in this center to mold 
and assimilate all foreign material. Another important 
question, then, connected with the prospects of the Russian 
Empire is, whether its population consists mainly of one 
race, which may supply a national life, and afford a true 
basis of national unity. If such a race exists, speaking a 
common language, bound together by the ties of common 
ancestry, national memories, interests, and hopes, creating 
a family pride and love of country ; then it becomes im- 
portant also to know whether this race possesses a clearly 
marked individuality, and if so, whether in these charac- 
teristics we are able to discover the elements of growth and 
greatness. 

Still another element of national power exists, where a 
nation is knit together by the ties of a common religion, 
and wdnen a deep religious sentiment pervades the public 
mind. There may be a profession of a common faith, in 
which the national heart feels little or no interest, where 
even the doctrines of Christianity are coldly admitted, more 
from the influence of tradition or early education than from 
a conviction wrought into the heart ; such a belief c^an not 
be regarded as an element of strength, for the national soul 
can not be roused for its defense — it can kindle no enthu- 
siasm. But when a great people are controlled by a relig- 
ious system in which they have an undoubting faith, and 
which has pow T er to excite and maintain a spirit of worship 
in the popular mind, such a people can be roused to the 
loftiest efforts of which man is capable, either for aggressive 
war, for the spread of a national faith, or in defense of their 
altars and their homes. In studying the characteristics of 
Russia, we should therefore not forget to inquire concern- 
ing her religious faith, and the warmth and strength of the 
religious sentiment among the millions of the empire, and 
whether there is a deep national feeling of belief and wor- 
ship that can be roused in a common cause. Finally, all 
the elements of national power may lie through long periods 
without being combined for any lofty purpose ; or a nation, 



THE ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS OF NATIONAL POWER. 175 

even from the first, may seem to have some presentiment 
of its destiny, and works on through centuries perhaps, 
toward a distant end, dimly perceived even by itself, until 
some mighty mind arises that comprehends the capacities 
of his country, and institutes at once the proper methods 
of awakening the national energies, and directs them to a 
definite end. If then, upon investigation, we discover some 
or all of these elements of power in Russia, it will then be 
interesting to consider whether they are still lying like rude 
materials yet unshapen by the hand of the artist, or whether 
we find in the Emperor that greatness which has placed 
him at the head of an era in his country's history, a genius 
which has enabled him to mark out for his nation a noble 
career, to conceive a great scheme bearing a true relation 
to the capabilities of his empire, and then direct toward 
this high end the whole power of his people. 

With these thoughts before us, let us proceed to the 
study of the great Northern Empire, and the policy and 
character of the Czar. This character and policy will be 
exhibited by presenting Russia as she is ; for the Russia of 
to-day has been modelled according to the conception of 
the late emperor, a conception to whose grand proportions 
the empire will continue to shape itself in its future expan- 
sion. Nicholas formed the great idea of a Sclavonic civil- 
ization, with a territory for its theater stretching from ocean 
to ocean, with the Greek faith and worship for its religious 
basis, with a vast commercial and manufacturing system 
for its support, and expanding not so much by conquest 
as by growth from a central life. 



176 GEOGRAPHICAL CHARACTER OF RUSSIA. 



CHAPTER XVII. 



GEOGRAPHICAL CHARACTER OP RUSSIA. 

In accordance with the suggestions made in the preced- 
ing chapter, let us now inquire whether Russia possesses a 
territory capable of sustaining a population that will give 
her a controlling influence in the affairs of Europe. It has 
been usual to speak of this empire under two great divi- 
sions, the one in Europe and the other in Asia, but we shall 
obtain a clearer idea of its vast dimensions by regarding it 
as one great whole. In fact, there is no great natural boun- 
dary to separate eastern from western Russia, the Ural 
mountains being little more than a long tract of elevated 
land, the loftiest portions rising only to the height of four 
thousand feet, the ascent and descent being so gradual 
where the great roads pass as to be almost imperceptible. 
We may then, without violence to any geographical feature, 
consider the Russian territory as one unbroken whole. 
Viewed thus, it stretches from the Baltic sea on the west, 
across the entire breadth of Europe and Asia to the sea of 
Okhotsk and to Behring's Straits, looking southward upon 
the entire northern frontier of Europe, Turkey, Tartary, 
and the Chinese empire. This territory contains no less 



GEOGRAPHICAL CHARACTER OF RUSSIA. 177 

than 6,750,000 square miles, or more than one-sixth part 
of all the land on our planet. It has been the custom of 
most to comprise the whole description of this immense 
possession within the sweeping remark that most of it is 
an inhospitable region of deserts and snows, incapable of 
sustaining human life, and altogether without any import- 
ant resources which can contribute to the growth of a 
nation. The almost unequalled progress of the empire 
within the last century is quite sufficient to expose the ab- 
surdity of such views, and yet in the one of latest American 
work upon Russia is found the following : After speaking 
of the great extent of the Russian dominions, aud stating 
that her territory is equal to two Europes, or the whole of 
North America, the author adds, "But by far the greatest 
" proportion of this prodigious superfices is almost unin- 
" habited, and seems to be destined to perpetual sterility; 
" a consequence partly of the extreme rigor of the climate, 
" in the provinces contiguous to the Arctic ocean, and 
" partly of almost all the great rivers by which they are 
"traversed having their embouchure on that ocean, and 
" being therefore inaccessible for either the whole or the 
" greater part of the year." 

What could the uninformed reader infer from this descrip- 
tion but that " by far the greatest proportion" of all Russia 
lies along the shores of the frozen ocean, and is therefore 
condemned to a "perpetual sterility?" But how docs this- 
idea accord with the fact that Russia, being somewhat less 
m extent than the North American continent, has already 
a population nearly double that of North America, and is 
surpassed by the United States alone in the rapidity of her 
progress. 

Again the same author remarks, "The most distinguish- 
" ing feature of Russia is her vasts forests. Schnitzler, who 
" estimates the surface of European Russia at about four 
"hundred millions of deciatims (2 7-10 acres), supposes 
"that one hundred and fifty-six millions are occupied by 
" forests. They are so very prevalent in the governments 
"of Novgorod and Tver, between Petersburg and Moscow, 
12 



178 GEOGRAPHICAL CHARACTER OF RUSSIA. 

"that it lias been said a squirrel might travel from the one 
"city to the other without ever touching the ground. In 
" the government of Perm, on both sides of the Ural 
"mountains, containing eighteen millions of deciatims, no 
" fewer than seventeen millions are covered by forests ! The 
"forests of Asiatic Russia are also of vast size." These 
may be facts, but facts thus presented without explanation, 
and in connection with the statements which have been 
mentioned concerning the sterile character of "by far the 
greatest proportion" of Russia, serve only to lead the mind 
of the inquirer astray. No long period has passed since 
the most " distinguishing feature" of North America, par- 
ticularly of the United States, was the almost unbroken 
forest, and it was scarcely impossible one hundred years 
a«-o for a squirrel to have passed from the Atlantic to the 
Mississippi through one continuous wood ; and yet on the 
very site of the old forest now stand our populous States, 
which indeed could not have sprung up with such mar- 
vellous growth had the forests been absent. These very 
forests constitute a most important portion of the wealth 
of Russia ; they form a solid basis for her future progress, 
and an element of growth with which she could by no 
means safely dispense — as will be shown hereafter. 

A fair comparison of the capabilities of the Russian Em- 
pire, so far as population is concerned, might be presented, 
could we make even an approximate estimate of the extent 
of territory within her limits, equal in productiveness to 
other portions of Europe, and then calculate what the num- 
ber of her people would be if these lands were as densely 
settled as Europe now is. Sir Archibald Allison has at- 
tempted such a calculation, in which, as a basis, he rejects 
two-thirds of Asiatic Russia as sterile and unproductive. 
Having done this, he then proceeds to show that if Russia 
in Europe were peopled as Germany now is, it would con- 
tain 150,000,000 souls ; if as dense as Great Britain, the 
number would be 311,000,000. He then adds, if that por- 
tion of Asiatic Russia which is capable of cultivation were 
peopled even as Scotland is, it would sustain 200,000,000 



GEOGRAPHICAL CHARACTER OF RUSSIA. 179 

inhabitants ; if as densely as the British Islands together, 
more than 500,000,000 people. If, then, the agricultural 
portion of Russia were populated only as Germany and 
Scotland now are, her numbers would be 350,000,000 ; 
if as densely as Great Britain, the population would be 
more than 800,000,000. This seems at first glance mere 
empty speculation. But let us consider that this would be 
the number of the multitudes of Russia, when she has only 
as many inhabitants to the square mile as Great Britain 
now has, and reckoning only the productive portion of her 
territory. The point to be observed here is, that with an 
equal number of inhabitants on the square mile, the popu- 
lation of Great Britain would be some 28,000,000, and that 
of Russia 800,000,000, and this without taking into account 
the sterile lands of the latter country. This, therefore, 
affords a fair comparison of the capacities of the two king- 
doms, looking at this single point alone. Nor can it be 
said that it is impossible that the agricultural portions of 
Russia will ever support as many inhabitants on the square 
mile as are found in Great Britain now, for out of about 
57,000,000 acres in the British Islands, 22,000,000 are waste 
lands. Besides, even the present ratio of increase in Russia 
will give her in the year 1900, 130,000,000 people ; in 1950, 
the number will be 260,000,000 ; and one hundred and fifty 
years hence, with simply her present rate of progress, her 
population will be 520,000,000, and we have seen that her 
territory is abundantly sufficient to support even this enor- 
mous multitude — that even then she will not be overstocked 
with people, for the estimate is based upon her agricultural 
and productive lands alone, and facts would seem to indi- 
cate that this portion of her country is much larger in pro- 
portion to the whole than has been hitherto supposed. 
Indeed, in almost all our publications upon this subject, 
from the elementary books and geographies of our schools 
to the scientific lecture, we find only those sweeping gener- 
alities which are usually employed in the absence of definite 
ideas and accurate information. 

It will be conceded by all that the territorial possessions 



180 GEOGRAPHICAL CHARACTER OF RUSSIA. 

of Russia are sufficiently extensive to form the basis of an 
empire more powerful than any now on the globe — superior 
even to any nation of the past. But then we are at once 
reminded that most of this vast dominion lying under the 
frozen skw of the north is unfit for the habitation of man, 
and is doomed to eternal rigor and sterility. If this is in- 
deed so, then western Europe has little to apprehend from 
the future growth of this northern Power, and the world at 
large little to hope from the civilization of the Sclavonic 
races. But it is better to study this subject in the light of 
admitted facts than to be guided by theories hastily con- 
structed, and which, like false quotations from some ancient 
author, pass current for generations, sometimes without ex- 
amination, and, consequently, without dispute. A few well 
established facts relating to position, climate, and produc- 
tions, will enable us to form an accurate opinion upon the 
single point of the capacity of the Russian territory to 
sustain a dense population. 

By far the largest proportion of the Russian Empire, 
whether in Europe or Asia, lies within the temperate zone, 
and this alone would furnish strong presumptive evidence, 
if not positive proof, that a small portion only of its lands 
are necessarily uninhabitable or barren, on account of the 
severity of the climate. Between the parallels of latitude 
that enclose entire Europe, Russia has a territory equal in 
extent to all the other European States, and from its south- 
ern limit, between the Black Sea and the Caspian, it 
stretches northward through about eighteen degrees of lati- 
tude, before it reaches the northern extremity of Great 
Britain, a distance equal to that from New Orleans to the 
center of Lake Superior — or in general terms, equal to the 
breadth of our country, from the Gulf of Mexico to British 
America. 

This fact alone is quite sufficient to show that, so far as 
territory and climate are concerned, she possess the elements 
of national greatness almost immeasureably beyond any 
other single Power of Europe — holding a territory nearly 
equal to them all, which lies in the same latitude as their 



GEOGRAPHICAL CHARACTER OF RUSSIA. 181 

own, beside her more northern districts, and her immense 
possessions in Asia. The character of that portion of Russia 
in Europe which lies north of the latitude of Great Britain, 
and also that of her Asiatic dominions, may be understood 
by Americans, if compared with our own country. In this 
comparison, it must not be forgotten that the climate of 
Europe is milder than in the corresponding latitudes in 
America. The opening of the spring, the time of the 
autumnal frosts, and the beginning of winter, will furnish 
proper points for such a comparison. It would probably be 
very near the truth, if the average time for the opening of 
the navigation of the Hudson is fixed at or near the 1st of 
April. The ice in the Penobscot, as was stated, began to 
move this season (1855) on the 14th of April. At St. Paul, 
Minnesota, the navigation of the Mississippi opens from 
the 1st to the middle of April, and up to this time, also, 
the ice usually remains in the harbors of our western lakes. 
The period for the closing of these rivers and lakes, in the 
autumn, is from the middle of November to the first of 
December — the Hudson alone excepted, which often re- 
mains open until the last days of December. Throughout 
the Northern States, the time for planting Indian corn is 
between the first and 12th of Ma}', and it reaches maturity, 
with a profitable yield, in regions so far north that the 
planting is delayed until June, while there, also, rye, oats, 
flax, barley, potatoes and other roots, as well as a great 
variety of fruits, grow in perfection. Now when it is con- 
sidered that the most flourishing portion of our country is 
that where the commencement of spring ranges from the 
middle of April to the middle of May, and where the 
autumnal frosts begin about the 1st of October, it is surely 
a somewhat hasty conclusion that a country of Europe, 
possessing a similar climate, must be regarded as doomed 
to perpetual sterility, as a mere frozen waste. The ice on 
the Neva, at St. Petersburgh, is usually broken up about 
the 18th of April, while it again becomes stationary about 
the 1st of December. Vegetation commences by the 1st 
of May, and proceeds with a rapidity that outstrips the 



182 GEOGRAPHICAL CHARACTER OF RUSSIA. 

growth of more southern climes, and fully compensates for 
the later opening of spring. By an examination of the 
reports of various travelers, but especially the descriptions 
of the accurate and scientific German tourist, Erman, we 
learn that if we travel eastward from St. Petersburgh, 
through Russia in Europe, and Siberia, to the Pacific Ocean, 
we shall find that through all these immense regions, to 
within a short distance of the arctic circle, the climate cor- 
responds in general with that of the northern portions of 
the United States, and the British American provinces ; 
that the commencement of winter and the beginning of 
spring, and the range of the thermometer, are nearly the 
same on both the eastern and western continents. It would 
therefore be wrong to conclude that any portion of Eussia, 
either in Europe or Asia, south of sixty-two degrees north 
latitude, may not support a dense population, when we have 
before our eyes ISTew England, northern New York, Wis- 
consin, Minnesota, and Canada, with a climate essentially 
the same, yet evidently possessing all the elements of rapid 
growth and national greatness. In regard to the produc- 
tiveness of the soil of Russia, our conclusions rest partly 
upon conceded facts, and partly upon inferences. Little 
need be said concerning the whole vast territory which lies 
opposite to the main portions of western Europe, embrac- 
ing; eighteen degrees of latitude, for although much has been 
said of the inhospitable and even uninhabitable steppes of 
the southern portion of this region, Americans have learned 
that a prairie land is capable of supporting an exceedingly 
dense population, and the " detestable black dust" mentioned 
by travelers in the Russian prairies, indicates, in a manner 
not to be mistaken, the fertile character of the soil. This 
region, then, lying side by side with western Europe, and 
almost equal in extent to that part of the United States 
which lies between the Atlantic and the Rocky Mountains, 
may, perhaps, be considered as equal in productiveness to 
the remainder of Europe. We have then to consider, in 
addition, the more northern portions of Russia, both in 
Europe and Asia. Here the winters are severe, and the 



GEOGRAPHICAL CHARACTER OF RUSSIA. 183 

summers are short; and, although the capabilities of the 
soil have scarcely been tested at all, it is probable that cul- 
tivation must cease at a point about one hundred miles 
south of the arctic circle. This opinion is founded chiefly 
upon the observations of Erman, who found that the grains 
of Europe had been brought to perfection within about 
this distance of the frigid zone, and even in places where 
the ground is perpetually frozen, a few feet below the sur- 
face. These northern regions, moreover, abound in immense 
forests, particularly of pine, and soil which is capable of 
supporting the growth of large forest trees will, by suitable 
culture, produce food for man. These forests form no in- 
considerable portion of the wealth of Russia, and will 
materially contribute to her future growth ; and the truth 
of this w r ill readily appear when we remember that the 
snows of the winter, and the countless streams in the sum- 
mer, furnish precisely the means of transport for lumber, 
which has been found so efficacious in America. 

Some idea ma} 7 be formed of the value of the forests of 
Russia, from the following statements which are found in 
Allison's History of Europe : " The cold and shivering 
" plains wdiich stretch toward Archangel and the shores 
" of the White Sea, are covered with immense forests of 
" oak and fir, furnishing at once inexhaustible materials 
" for ship-building, and supplies of fuel, which for many 
"generations will supercede the necessity of searching in 
" the bowels of the earth for the purposes of warmth or 
"manufacture, for the inhabitants of the empire." He 
then quotes the following from " Trans de UAcademie 
" Imperiale, de St. Petersburgh ; Make Brun and Bremner's 
" Russia" : 

" The extent of the forests in the northern provinces of 
Russia is almost inconceivable. From actual measurement 
it appears that in the three governments of Vologda, Arch- 
angel, and Olonitz alone, there are 216,000,000 acres of 
pine and fir, being about three times the whole surface of 
the British Islands, which contains 77,000,000. In one 
government alone there are 47,000,000 acres of forest. 



184 GEOGRAPHICAL CHARACTER OF RUSSIA. 

It appears from M. Herman's calculations, that there are 
in thirty-one governments in the north of Russia, 8,195,295 
firs well adapted to large masts, each being above thirty 
inches in diameter — a number more than sufficient for a 
long supply of all the fleets in the world, besides 86,869,000 
fit for building houses. In twenty-two governments only, 
there are 374,804 large oaks, each more than twenty-six 
inches in diameter, and 229,570,000 of a smaller size." A 
country thus supplied with such magnificent forests of tim- 
ber, for ship-building, the construction of dwellings, and 
all the purposes of the arts, and so abundantly furnished 
with the means of transport by her net-work of rivers, 
may not be carelessly described as a mere frozen, barren 
waste ; for these forests when they disappear, as the popu- 
lation increases, and civilization advances, will be succeeded 
by grain fields, and orchards, and prosperous communities, 
in the same manner in which we have seen the change 
wrought on American soil. It is doubtless true, that there 
is much waste land even within the lim ts of what has been 
designated as the agricultural district of the Russian Em- 
pire, and the northern portions of her territory, even within 
the temperate zone, can not be considered productive when 
compared with the Danubian provinces, or with the valley 
of the Mississippi ; but then it should be remembered what 
large tracts of land are found unfit for cultivation in every 
country. How large a portion of the whole surface, for 
instance, in New England, is occupied by mountains and 
rugged hills that the plow can not visit ; yet these very 
mountains, covered with forests, sparkling with streams, 
and filled with mineral wealth, afford the means of sup- 
porting an exceedingly dense population. The capabilities 
of Russia have evidently been too hastily judged ; her 
rapid growth, unequalled except by our own, would indi- 
cate that no unusual proportion of her territory is waste 
and sterile, and there are many proofs that the Russians 
are subduing a continent, expanding themselves on every 
side, and redeeming the wilderness, after the manner of the 
Americans here. 



THE RELATIVE POSITION OF RUSSIA. 185 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



THE RELATIVE POSITION OF RUSSIA. 

Whatever may be the extent of a nation's territory, or 
the productiveness of its soil, it can have no extended 
growth, or permanent greatness based on its own inde- 
pendent resources, if it is either hemmed in by other pow- 
erful nations, or excluded from adequate communication 
with the ocean. A nation thus situated can become great 
only by conquest or peaceful acquisition, thus securing to 
itself advantages which did not belong to its original 
domain. Russia has thus extended herself with astonishing 
rapidity ; but this enlargement of her dominion has been 
not so much by overrunning contiguous countries as by the 
expansion of an internal life, which has sought space wherein 
to grow ; and it is her present position, and what seems to 
be her immediate and inevitable future, that is presented 
for consideration here. Perhaps Americans may perceive 
in the picture enough of resemblance to our own position 
to awaken in them a new interest in regard to this Euro- 
pean America, and to inquire whether two great nations 
now facing each other on the opposite shores of the Pacific, 
are not hereafter to be brought into more intimate asso- 
ciation. 



186 THE RELATIVE POSITION OF RUSSIA. 

Like America Russia reaches from ocean to ocean, stretch- 
ing across the whole breadth of Europe and Asia, and 
resting one wing on the Pacific and the other upon the 
Atlantic. She is thus placed, at either extremity of her 
empire, in communication with the commerce of the world. 
Through the Baltic she connects herself with Europe, and 
with the trade of the eastern coast of America, and east- 
ward on the Pacific, there is opened to her the commerce 
of China, the East Indian Archipelago, and the Pacific slope 
of the American continent. From these two extremities the 
trade of the world may he drawn inward toward the heart 
of the empire. One acquisition has lately been made by 
Russia in the East, which will change the whole aspect of 
her eastern commerce, and will prove of the very highest 
importance in connection with the progress of our own 
population on the Pacific coast. This point will be made 
clear by the following quotation from Alison, and by the 
inspection of a good map : " The river Amoor, which flows 
"from the mountains of Mongolia into the ocean of Japan, 
"by a course twelve hundred miles in length, of which nine 
"hundred are navigable, in a deep channel, shut in on 
" either side by precipitous rocks, or shaded by noble forests, 
"is the real outlet of eastern Siberia ; and though the Chi- 
"nese are still masters of this splendid stream, it is as in- 
"dispensible to Asiatic as the Volga is to European Russia, 
" and ere long it must fall under the dominion of the 
" Czar, and constitute the principal outlet of his immense 
" oriental provinces." Mr. Alison has underrated the size 
of the Amoor. It is twenty-two hundred miles in length, 
and navigable through a large portion of its whole extent. 
The upper portion of this stream lies within the Emperor's 
dominions, in the province of Irkoutsk, and with the Chi- 
nese in possession of its mouth, eastern Siberia is in a con- 
dition somewhat similar to that of the upper Mississippi 
valley before the Louisiana purchase. Russia has lately 
obtained the control of the valley of the Amoor to its 
mouth, and it will at once hecome the channel of an ex- 
tensive commerce, not with the East alone, but with the 



THE RELATIVE POSITION OF RUSSIA. 187 

Pacific slope of America. Siberia is traversed from north 
to south by large navigable rivers, which empty, however, 
into the Arctic ocean ; but so soon as the trade of these 
streams is carried on by steam vessels, changes will take 
place, such as have occurred on our western rivers, and 
these channels, united, as ultimately they will be, by rail- 
ways pointing eastward and toward the valley of the Amoor, 
will pour into the sea of Japan, the mineral and other pro- 
ductions of southern and central Siberia, and the northern 
provinces of China, and bear back from other lands the 
means of comfort and civilization to the heart of northern 
Asia. On the shores of California and Oregon, and at the 
mouth of the Amoor, and in the harbors of the sea of Ja- 
pan, Russians and Americans will meet for the exchanges 
of a mutual commerce, remote from the rest of Europe. 

We shall scarcely overestimate the importance of the 
trade which, at no remote period, will flow to and from 
southern Siberia, and the adjacent provinces lately added 
to the Russian territory, if we may credit a distingushed 
English writer, who declares that the immense plains 
" which stretch to the eastward along, the banks of the 
"Amoor, are capable of containing all the nations of 
" Christendom in comfort and affluence." Again, by her 
possessions upon the Black Sea, she is placed in direct 
communication with the commerce of the Mediterranean, 
and through the Mediterranean she has a third chan- 
nel connecting her with the general trade of the world. 
In this calculation, no notice is taken of her long line of 
sea coast on the Arctic Ocean. In those frozen regions it 
possesses less commercial importance. A country so vast 
as Russia could scarcely touch the sea more advantageously 
than she does, resting in the east on the Pacific, lying in 
the west along the Atlantic, for the Baltic and the Gulf of 
Finland are to her as to the Atlantic sea coast, while, along 
the southern frontier of her European territory stretches 
the Black Sea. It is apparent that nothing more is want- 
ing but the possession of Constantinople and the control of 
the Dardanelles, to complete a territorial outline of the 



188 THE RELATIVE POSITION OF RUSSIA. 

most imposing character that earth has ever seen in the 
possession of a single Power, and to which earth can afford 
no parallel, except in North America. He who studies 
aright the position, resources, and progress of Russia, will 
see at once that the possession of Constantinople is merely 
a question of time. The idea that the Powers of western 
Europe are able to check permanently the advance of Russia 
will not long he seriously entertained. The life of the 
Northern Empire lies beyond their reach, and she needs 
but to permit them to exhaust themselves upon her frontier 
positions, and quietly wait until they are forced backward 
by the resistless power of her growth. She is under no 
present necessity of possessing Constantinople ; she requires 
only the power to control its owner, and shape for them a 
policy in accordance with her own, and the most splendid 
dreams of Muscovite greatness may then be realized, even 
while the Golden Horn remains in the possession of the 
Sultan. 

It may not be uninteresting to the American reader to 
pause a moment here, in order to bestow a passing glance 
upon the general resemblance between the geographical 
position of Russia and North America, as well as a relation- 
ship of position — indicating, as it would seem, a closer con- 
nection between the two nations in their future career. 

The comparison is instituted between Russia and North 
America because nothing in the future is more certain than 
that the North American continent, with its adjacent seas 
and islands, will be controlled by a siugle government. If 
the American Union continues, such a result will be reached 
by the inevitable law of national development. Russia and 
North America then are nearly equal in the extent of their 
possessions, and each is capable of supporting a population 
of a thousand millions, without overburthening its territory 
or exhausting its resources. They both stretch from ocean 
to ocean, each resting one broad wing upon the Atlantic 
and the other upon the Pacific ; and together, the arms of 
their wide dominion reach round the globe. They face 
each other from the opposite shores of the Atlantic, for, as 



GEOGRAPHICAL CHARACTER OF RUSSIA. 189 

has been said, the Baltic and the Gulf of Finland form for 
Russia an Atlantic sea-coast. Again, the two nations lie 
fronting- each other on the shores of the North Pacific — 
suggesting a future influence over the East Indian Archi- 
pelago, scarcely anticipated now: a control of the com- 
merce of the East, which our Government is preparing for 
by her negotiations with Japan, and of which Russia is not 
unmindful, as was evident from the watchful presence of 
her fleet while our squadron was at Yeddo, and by her ad- 
vancing to the valley of the Amoor. The eastern provinces 
of Russia on the Pacific, and the western territories of the 
United States on the same ocean, can furnish unlimited 
resources, either for a navy or a commercial marine, and 
therefore the trade of that " Exhaustless East" may yet flow 
along two new channels, running in opposite directions — 
one eastward, through the heart of North America, and 
the other westward, through the dominions of Russia. 
Such a change in the world's commerce is surely not alto- 
gether improbable ; indeed the course of events already 
indicates such a result, and it requires uo argument to 
demonstrate that, if it occurs, the Powers of western Europe 
will sink at once to a secondary position, and yield up for- 
ever the control of the world. Such a view suggests the 
intimate relations which may hereafter be established be- 
tween the United States and Russia ; and the growing sym- 
pathy between the two nations may, perhaps, be regarded 
as a foreshadowing of the future. Again, these two countries 
resemble each other in their capacity for self-development 
and independent support. They both enjoy every variety 
of soil, climate, and production that can be round north of 
the southern limit of the temperate zone, and therefore, 
though they were shut out from all the world beside, each 
could still maintain a vigorous natural growth from their 
own domestic resources. Indeed, if it were possible for 
the Powers of Europe completely to blockade every sea- 
port of Russia -and America for the next fifty years, they 
would find, in the end, that so far from crushing the power 
of either nation, they had only, in each, nursed to maturity 



190 GEOGRAPHICAL CHARACTER OF RUSSIA. 

a compact and homogeneous power, self-balanced on its 
own resources, self-sustained by its own internal life, irre- 
sistible through its national unity and individuality of char- 
acter. Each of these countries is capable of becoming a 
world within itself, independent of and even excluded from 
the rest of earth. Vast as is the foreign commerce of the 
United States, it is yet small when compared with our 
domestic trade, and the complete annihilation of our trade 
with foreign nations would not touch the sources of our 
national life, nor even permanently retard our progress. 
Russia and America are the only two Powers of earth that 
might become great nations if shut out from the rest of the 
world, and therefore the efforts of all other nations can 
not long or materially obstruct the growth of either. Both 
are impregnable on their own soil, and both may securely 
develope their exhaustless internal resources, without the 
possibility of being prevented by any. The two countries 
also present some points of general resemblance in the 
natural facilities which both possess for internal communi- 
cation, as well as for the construction of artificial channels 
for travel and for trade. Russia can boast of no such mag- 
nificent chain of internal seas as those of North America, 
but she has the Caspian, eight hundred miles long, on the 
east — the Black Sea along the central portion of her south- 
ern frontier in Europe — and the Baltic, and the Gulf of 
Finland, affording her a long line of what may be called 
inland sea-coast, in the northwest, while her whole terri- 
tory is covered, almost equally with the American continent, 
by a net-work of navigable rivers. In addition to these 
natural avenues of commerce, the nature of the country 
presents almost unrivalled facilities for the construction of 
artificial connections, whether canals or roads. Russia may 
be regarded as one vast plain, reaching from the Atlantic 
to the Pacific, and intersected by few mountain ranges, so 
that no obstacle is presented to the establishment of rail- 
ways in any required direction, while the material for such 
structures exists in abundance. Both in the United States 
and Russia, therefore, are found unlimited resources for a 



GEOGRAPHICAL CHARACTER OF RUSSIA. 191 

home growth, the cultivation of an individual and inde- 
pendent national life. In the external features and relative 
geographical position, then, of these two great nations, we 
perceive enough of general resemblance to suggest the in- 
quiry whether they are not to be in some manner more 
closely associated than they have hitherto been — whether, 
in the new aspect of the world's affairs, now opening around 
us, they are not to act in concert, and possibly in united 
self-defense, against the Powers of western Europe. Espe- 
cially may we suppose that this might occur if England 
and France should assume, as they now seem disposed to 
do, the office of regulators of the concerns of nations in both 
hemispheres, which, being interpreted, means simply that 
the} 7 propose to combine to repress the progress of any 
Power which, even in its legitimate growth, may over- 
shadow their own. Russia and America have been prepared, 
as it were, in the wilderness, away from the great theater 
of European affairs. A little time since they were scarcely 
thought of, much less consulted, in the movements of 
nations ; they have risen together to the position of great 
rowers on earth, and henceforth they can scarcely re- 
main indifferent to each other's condition and policy. Un- 
accountable as it may appear, considering the different 
character of their political institutions, it is doubtless true 
that Russia regards America with more friendly feelings 
than she does any nation of Europe, and indications are 
not wanting that republican America will ere long strongly 
reciprocate this friendship of an absolute monarchy. It is 
believed to be quite impossible to estimate correctly, from 
any descriptions which have been given, the actual extent 
of internal navigation supplied by the rivers and lakes of 
Russia. The country has, as yet, to a great extent, been 
but imperfectly explored, unless by the government itself. 
Foreigners are acquainted only with the larger streams of 
the empire, and thousands of miles of river navigation may 
probably exist, altogether unknown to any who have visited 
Russia. The main streams which flow into the Baltic, 
those which empty into the Black Sea, and the Caspian, 



192 GEOGRAPHICAL CHARACTER OF RUSSIA. 

and the great rivers of Siberia, have been described in gen- 
eral terms, and we are informed that they are navigable to 
certain points. These descriptions have been given mostly 
by those who know little of river navigation as practised 
in America. Those who are accustomed to see American 
steamboats on our western rivers, carrying on a profitable 
traffic, with a depth of water from fifteen inches to eighteen 
inches only, will readily understand, from a map, that the 
Russian territory will yet be traversed, in all directions, by 
steamboats of light draught, such as now enliven the rivers 
of the west, and that such capacities for domestic traffic, 
and for reaching the seaboard, are ample for the develop- 
ment of the country's resources. A single statement, furn- 
ished by Ehrman throws, much light upon this interesting 
subject. 

This author, in describing the mines of the Ural moun- 
tains, and the amount of iron annually produced, states the 
line of river navigation from the mining region to St. 
Petersburg, to be 3,850 miles. He also mentions that from 
the upper Volga, from 4000 to 6000 barges descend annu- 
ally to St. Petersburg, by a canal connecting with the Neva; 
and when we consider that iron from the Ural, destined to 
European Russia, requires about 1000 boats annually, car- 
rying each nearly one hundred tons at the commencement 
of the voyage, the cargo being increased at a certain point 
below, we may form an idea of the amount of the present 
internal commerce of Russia. Nor must we forget that 
this trade is yet almost entirely carried on in such rude 
boats as a few years since floated on the Mississippi and 
Ohio, and it is not therefore too much to anticipate that in 
the future progress of Russia, and in a period not remote, 
such a change may be wrought by the introduction of steam 
vessels upon her rivers, as we have already seen from this 
cause in the Mississippi valley. She has begun, and com- 
pleted to Moscow, one of her great trunk lines of railway 
intended to concentrate upon her capital, and it is in pro- 
gress and nearly finished to Odessa. Let but this be car- 
ried from Moscow, eastward to the valley of the Amoor, an 



THE RELATIVE POSITION OF RUSSIA. 193 

enterprise only equal to our own Pacific Railway, and then 
a trunk line will connect Moscow with the East Indian 
seas, and from Moscow one branch will pass westward to 
St. Petersburg, and the other southward toward Constanti- 
nople, striking the Black Sea at Odessa. These lines would 
cross the whole system of the navigable rivers of the empire, 
and would be to Russian commerce, both foreign and do- 
mestic, what the Pacific road and its branches will be to the 
United States, passing the Ural and its boundless mineral 
wealth midway, as the American road will the Rocky moun- 
tains. No one doubts that the American railway will be 
completed at no distant period, and who that considers the 
past progress and present power of Russia shall say that 
she will not also construct a Pacific railway, aided by Ame- 
rican skill and experience. 

This, for Russia, would only be to construct the modern 
iron road, with steam carriages, along the old highway of 
her Eastern commerce, and certainly it would be an instruc- 
tive sight to the boastful powers of western Europe if the 
two nations who have been the chief object of their ridi- 
cule, one as barbarian, and the other as composed of back- 
woodsmen, should ere long present them with one continuous 
line of railway and ocean steam navigation, reaching round 
the globe and turning the commerce of the East through 
the heart of America and Russia. Such a result is by no 
means impossible 

13 



194 RUSSIA EASILY GOVERNED FROM ONE CENTER. 



CHAPTER XIX. 



RUSSIA EASILY GOVERNED FROM ONE CENTER. 

It has already been remarked that no extent of territorial 
possession, however fertile its soil, or however dense its 
population, will afford a foundation for true national great- 
ness, unless it is a contiguous territory, or can in some 
manner be bound into one whole, so that the remotest ex* 
tremity will feel the influence of a central life. With such 
methods of communication only as the ancients possessed, 
no widely-extended government could long maintain itself 
united and secure ; and with these examples of failure and 
dissolution before them, the wisest of the early American 
statesmen felt little inclination to enlarge our national do- 
main ; and only a few years since, the idea of retaining a 
united dominion over our present territory would have 
been rejected by many, perhaps by most, as absurd. But 
the steam vessel, the railway, and the telegraph, practically 
condense a continent into the space of a province, and all 
are now convinced that the magnitude of our country will 
never destroy the efficiency or unity of the government. 
That alone would not now prevent one central power from 
controlling the two Americas. In examining, therefore, 
the elements of power possessed by Russia, it is necessary 
to consider more particularly than we have hitherto done, 



RUSSIA EASILY GOVERNED FROM ONE CENTER. 195 

the nature of these facilities for intercourse between different 
parts of her empire, which she now enjoys, or may prob- 
ably create hereafter, in the regular and natural develop- 
ment of her resources. We shall then understand whether 
she is likely to remain a firmly-compacted whole, animate 
with a single life, or whether she must be regarded as a 
mass of heterogeneous materials loosely cohering even now, 
and soon to be separated entirely. A glance has been be- 
stowed upon this point, in the brief comparison instituted 
between the United States and Russia, but the means of 
internal communication enjoyed by the latter demand a 
more particular description. This may properly commence 
with the rivers of the country. These may be separated 
into five groups, viz. : the Pacific, the Arctic Ocean, the 
Caspian, the Black Sea, and the Baltic. Beginning in the 
east with the river basins which stretch from the southern 
base of the Altai mountains, 1 southeastward toward the Pa- 
cific, there is an extensive region of whose rivers little is 
known, except the Amoor, and even in regard to that our 
information is scanty and unsatisfactory, it having been 
until quite lately within the guarded Chinese dominions. 
It must henceforth be regarded as a Russian river, the 
natural and necessary outlet of the whole eastern portion 
of the empire. It is described as a " splendid stream," hav- 
ing a course of twenty -two hundred miles, for a large portion 
of which it is said to be navigable. Such a river must, of 
course, drain a territory proportionate to its own magni- 
tude, and the glowing though indefinite accounts of the 
wide and fertile plains that lie along its banks, together 
with its actual magnitude and the distance for which it is 
navigable, remind one of the Mississippi and its valley, below 
St. Louis. Such a stream must also be sustained by many 
important affluents of which nothing definite is known to 
Europeans. Its whole course is through an attractive and 
productive region, and it requires but a slight effort of the 
imagination to present a picture of this great valley as it 
will be, when fleets of steamers shall cover the Amoor and 
its tributaries, not only bearing the production of the adja- 



196 RUSSIA EASILY GOVERNED FROM ONE CENTER. 

cent countries, but interchanging the commodities of Europe, 
Asia, and America. 

This stream rises in the province of Irkoutsk in southern 
Siberia, and flowing in a southeasterly direction into the 
Sea of Japan, seems to have been formed with especial 
reference to the trade of Asiatic Russia, reaching from the 
Chinese seas to the head-streams of one of the largest rivers 
in Siberia that empties into the Arctic Ocean, and is thus 
prepared to receive the trade of the valley of the Lena — ■ 
which reaches to the frozen shores of the Polar sea. 

This extreme eastern portion then of Russia, is a vast and 
fertile river basin, stretching from the Sea of Japan north- 
westerly to south-eastern Siberia, traversed by a stream 
navigable for more than a thousand miles, according to esti- 
mates of river navigation made before American steamboats 
on our western rivers had shown how small a stream is 
capable of floating a profitable commerce. On the head- 
waters of the Amoor, that vast plain is reached which in- 
clines slightly to the Arctic Sea, and across which flow 
some of the longest rivers of Asia. The traveler from the 
Pacific, following up the valley of the Amoor, would strike 
first in the province of Irkoutsk, the upper waters of the 
Lena, then passing far westward, he would reach the valley 
of the Yenisei, and finally at the eastern base of the Ural 
mountains, he would find a third broad river basin, that of 
the Obi. Each of these mighty streams is said to have a 
course of more than two thousand miles. Along these vast 
valleys, for about one-half their extent, the cereals of Europe 
come to maturity ; and he who knows what success has 
crowned agricultural labor in Minnesota, and even much 
further north, where the range of the thermometer is much 
the same as in southern Siberia, will not hastily conclude 
that the latter must be regarded only as a frozen, desert 
waste. 

The actual extent of arable land can not be estimated, 
with our present means of information ; but the value of 
uncultivated lands in high northern latitudes, is almost 
universally underrated. Immense tracts of natural pasture 



RUSSIA EASILY GOVERNED FROM ONE CENTER. 197 

spread over these great plains ; heavy forests skirt the 
streams, even within the Arctic circle, furnishing exhaust- 
less supplies of valuable timber, while the fisheries of the 
rivers, and the furs of the northern districts are of them- 
selves the sources of a very important trade. On the western 
frontier of Siberia, and along the western edge of the valley 
of the Obi, rise the Ural mountains, embosoming a mineral 
wealth without a parallel on the globe, except in the great 
mountain ranges of America. These rivers and their tri- 
butaries are navigable for most of their course for about six 
months in the year, and considering the resources and extent 
of the country, it is easy to perceive what it may become 
with a railway crossing these valleys, from the head of 
steamboat navigation on the Amoor to the mineral regions 
in the Ural, from whence there is already a river navigation 
fitted for small steam vessels to the Caspian, the Black Sea, 
and the Baltic. 

Before any one turns away from such statements, as idle 
and empty speculation, let him calmly consider the progress 
of the United States within the last twenty years, and the 
certainty that the whole breadth of our continent will very 
soon be spanned by a railway having one terminus on the 
Atlantic and the other on the Pacific, and then remember 
that in rapidity of growth and improvement,Russia stands 
next to America. Siberia then, traversed from north to 
south by rivers whose magnitude compares with those of 
North America, requires but a line of communication cross- 
ing them from east to west, such as a railway would supply, 
to develope her great resources, and put her in connection 
both with Asia and Europe. Her third system of rivers 
embraces those which fall into the Caspian Sea. Of these 
the Volga alone requires to be mentioned. This is the 
largest river of Europe, being two thousand miles in length, 
one and a quarter miles broad at its mouth, and navigable 
almost to its very source, or perhaps even, for steamboats 
like those of our western rivers, through its entire course, 
as it rises from a lake. It may be compared to the Missis- 
sippi, reckoning from the Falls of St. Anthony to the Gulf 



198 RUSSIA EASILY GOVERNED FROM ONE CENTER. 

of Mexico. It receives numerous important affluents from 
the east and north-east, which connect the main stream by 
navigable waters, not only with important agricultural dis- 
tricts, but with the mining regions of the Ural. In the 
lower part of its course it approaches within about thirty 
miles of the Don, at a point where the nature of the country 
offers no impediment to the construction of a ship canal, 
which has been often projected, ancf even commenced, but 
not completed. By this comparatively small work, the 
whole valley of the Volga and the western slope of the 
Ural, would be connected directly with the Black Sea and 
the Mediterranean. 

One of the tributaries of the Volga, coming from the 
northeast, has a course of one thousand miles, about equal to 
the Ohio from Pittsburgh to the Mississippi, and another, 
the Oka, on a branch of which is Moscow, is seven hundred 
miles long, and navigable almost to its source. The Volga 
is united by a canal with the Duna, which empties into the 
Gulf of Riga, and thus uninterrupted navigation is estab- 
lished between the Caspian Sea and the Baltic. Another 
eanal connects a tributary of the Oka with the Don, and 
this opens an indirect communication between the Black 
Sea and the Caspian. Still another canal unites the Volga 
with the Dwina, which flows into the White Sea, and thus 
another navigable line is formed from the southern ex- 
tremity of the empire, through its very heart, to Archangel 
and the Frozen Ocean. Yet another work opens a con- 
nection between the Volga and the Lake Onega, and St. 
Petersburg, and this city is also united with Moscow both 
by canal and railway. There are thus three main lines of 
water communication across the entire breadth of European 
Russia. One from the mineral region of the Ural to St. 
Petersburg and the Baltic; one from the Caspian north- 
ward to the Arctic Ocean, and one from the Caspian, and 
also from the Ural, through to the Duna, to the Baltic; 
and even yet another, by the way of the Oka and Moscow, 
to St. Petersburg by the canal. This is quite independent 
of that great number of smaller streams and shorter con- 



RUSSIA EASILY GOVERNED FROM ONE CENTER. 199 

nections known only to the inhabitants of a country. To- 
gether, they present a perfect network of veins and arteries, 
along which the tides of internal commerce flow. Next 
are the rivers which flow into the Black Sea. Among these 
are : the Dnieper, which is twelve hundred miles long, a 
broad and deep stream, navigable for a large portion of its 
course ; the Bog, or Boug, which is more than four hun- 
dred miles long, and navigable ; and the Don, which is also 
a navigable stream, is about five hundred miles in length. 
The lower portion of this stream will be the channel of 
an immense trade so soon as the canal is finished between 
it and the Volga, a distance of about thirty miles ; and, 
finally, the Kouban, a shallow stream coming from the Cau- 
casus, and navigable only for boats of a light draught. Its 
length is about four hundred miles. 

In addition to the rivers already mentioned, the Danube, 
having sixty navigable tributaries, falls into the Black Sea. 
Russia has obtained the control of the mouths of this im- 
portant European stream, and her fortress of Ismail com- 
mands the commerce which passes by the northern or 
Kilia branch. If, as is said, the bar across the mouth of 
the Sulinah, or middle branch, is yearly increasing, the 
whole trade of the Danube may be thrown into the north- 
ern channel, and must pass under the guns of a Russian for- 
tification. Russia owns the north shore of the Danube as far 
as G-alatz, near which town it receives the Pruth, which 
in a course of more than five hundred miles, flows alon°- 
the province of Bessarabia. The fifth system of Russian 
rivers is connected with the Baltic. Its streams are smaller 
than those already described, but their commercial import- 
ance is, nevertheless, great. The Neva, on which St. Peters- 
burgh is built, has its source in the Lake Ladoga, which 
is one hundred and thirty miles long, while it averages 
seventy-five miles in breadth. The shores of the Ladoga, 
and the commerce of the streams which empty into this 
lake, some of which bring the productions of the Ural, 
make the Neva the channel of a very extensive trade. The 
Duna discharges itself into the Gulf of Riga, and being 



200 RUSSIA EASILY GOVERNED FROM ONE CENTER. 

connected by a canal with the Volga, as has already been 
stated, it floats an extensive commerce. The Vistula is the 
chief river of Poland, and at Warsaw it is about seven 
hundred feet broad. 

This completes a general, but by no means a full, survey 
of the facilities afforded by the Russian rivers for internal 
trade and travel. The government has already begun the 
establishment of lines of river steamers of the American 
build, and they are now running almost to the very base of 
the Ural mountains. No long time will elapse before these 
almost countless streams will present the aspect of our 
American rivers, and business and towns will spring up 
along their banks, as they have already done, by the use of 
similar means, in the Mississippi valley. The flat boat and 
the horse barges will disappear from Russian waters, as the 
broad-horns have from the Ohio and the Mississippi, and 
steam, both on the water and on the land, will convey the 
trafhc of the empire. 

As already stated, the country of the Czar can boast of 
no such connected chain of great lakes as are found in 
America. Still it is a land of lakes, and gulfs, and inland 
3eas, which afford great facility for its commerce. On the 
west and northwest, almost countless gulfs and bays shoot 
inland from the Atlantic, giving long lines of interior sea- 
coast, and communicating with her navigable rivers. Lake 
Baikal, in Southern Siberia, is about the size of Lake Erie, 
and its valuable fisheries form the basis of an important 
commerce. The Caspian Sea is but an immense salt-lake, 
about eight hundred miles long ; and the Black Sea, and 
the Baltic, may also be regarded as merely interior seas, of 
which Russia will ultimately retain the chief control, in 
spite of the combined efforts of western Europe. The 
lakes Ladoga and Onega are by no means inconsiderable 
bodies of water, the first having an area of more than six 
thousand square miles, and the latter being one hundred 
and thirty miles long and fifty miles in breadth. Smaller 
lakes, many of them large enough to become channels of 
trade, are scattered through both European and Asiatic 



RUSSIA EASILY GOVERNED FROM ONE CENTER. 201 

Russia. The largest of these are united either naturally or 
by canals, with the navigable rivers, and thus, when the 
progress of the country has covered these countless chan- 
nels with steamboats, and when that system of railways, 
already begun on an enlightened scale, shall be completed, 
Russia will posssess more abundant means for intercourse 
and exchange, for the diffusion of one national life, and the 
preservation of national unity than any other country on earth 
enjoys unless it be our own. "With a Pacific railway crossing 
Siberia, in addition to her natural advantages, and her sys- 
tem of roads in Europe already projected and partly finished 
she may extend her limits almost indefinitely, and yet not 
peril the unity of her government on account of her magni- 
tude. Her position will be widely different from that of 
England, with possessions in the four quarters of the globe, 
that admit of no union ; she will be one compact and living 
national body, growing and sustained by the power of one 
central life. 



202 RUSSIA HAS FEW VULNERABLE POINTS. 



CHAPTER XX. 



RUSSIA HAS FEW VULNERABLE POINTS. 



Before entering upon this subject, it is well to remind 
the American reader of the utter worthlessness of many of 
the most popular accounts which have been given of the 
resources of Russia, and the character of her military 
defenses. The statements which travelers have made con- 
cerning the Empire of the Czars are only to be matched in 
absurdity or wanton misrepresentation by those which have 
emanated from similar quarters concerning the United 
States. Either a vitiated public sentiment, or a settled 
design to injure, has given rise to a systematic course of 
ridicule and misrepresentations, forming a distorted literary 
medium through which both countries have been seen only 
in caricature. Through this, western Europe has sneered 
at America and the Yankees, and through this also Ameri- 
cans have been greatly deluded in regard to Russia. Oli- 
phant, whose opininions are quoted as reliable authority 
in this country, and whose statements were transfered to 
an elaborate American work, and sent forth to mold public 
opinion concerning Russia, with the remark that they are 
valuable because the result of recent observation, writes 
thus concerning Sebastopol, from personal survey, no longer 



RUSSIA HAS FEW VULNERABLE POINTS. 203 

ago than 1853, but a few months before the landing of the 
Allied army : 

"Nothing can be more formidable than the appearance 
of Sebastopol from the seaward. Upon a future occasion 
we visited it in a steamer, and found that at one point we 
w r ere commanded by twelve hundred pieces of artillery ; 
fortunately for a hostile fleet, we afterwards heard, that 
they could not be discharged without bringing down the 
rotten batteries upon which they were placed, and which 
are so badly constructed that they look as if they had been 
done by contract. Four of these forts consist of three tiers 
of batteries. "We were of course unable to do more than 
take a very general survey of these celebrated fortifications, 
and therefore can not vouch for the truth of the assertion, 
that the rooms in which the guns are worked are so narrow 
and ill-ventilated, that the artillerymen would be inevitably 
stifled in the attempt to discharge their guns and their duty; 
but of one fact there was no doubt, that however well forti- 
fied may be the approaches to Sebastopol by sea, there is 
nothing whatever to prevent any number of troops landing 
a few miles to the south of the town, in one of the six con- 
venient bays with which the coast, as far as Cape Kherson, 
is indented, and marching down the main street, (provided 
they were strong enough to defeat any military force that 
might be opposed to them in the open field,) sack the 
town and burn the fleet." 

Such absurdities as these are gravely sent forth from the 
English press, as the foundation of reliable opinions con- 
cerning Russia. Oliphant's work has gone through several 
London editions ; it was republished in America, and its 
opinions were extracted and scattered abroad in American 
books. The siege of this fortification is a sufficient com- 
mentary upon the value of the book, and when the strength 
of a place that for months successfully resisted the most 
formidable attack which has been made in modern times is 
thus flippantly misrepresented, and when we remember that 



204 RUSSIA HAS FEW VULNERABLE POINTS. 

such impressions concerning Russia are, or have heen, 
almost universal, and have been derived from similar sources, 
it ought at least to induce the American people to examine 
with more care the testimony upon which they are asked 
to make up an opinion of the resources, character, and 
policy of the most formidable power in Europe. The Allied 
forces tested the character of the fortifications at Sebasto- 
pol, and the same science and skill have been employed 
upon the other defenses of the Empire. Especially should 
we expect that those in the west, by which the approaches 
to St. Petersburgh are protected, and which guard her great 
naval depots, are at least equal to those in the remote pro- 
vince of the Crimea. It is sufficient proof of their supposed 
strength, that the Baltic fleet did not venture within reach 
of their guns. 

The principal outlet for the Russian empire, on the west, 
is the Gulf of Finland, and here also are three of her great 
naval stations. As this is the only point where she can be 
approached from the Atlantic by a hostile fleet, it is well to 
observe how her fleets, navy yards, military stores, and 
capital are protected. At the entrance of the Gulf of Fin- 
land are two of the naval stations where she equips, and 
where also she guards her ships. The most important is 
Sweaborg, in the Bay of Helsingfors. This immense for- 
tification is constructed upon several small islands, or rather 
rocks of granite, out of which the works have to a great 
extent been blasted and hewn, after the manner of Gibral- 
tar, to which it is scarcely inferior in strength, and is 
denominated the Gibraltar of the North. Eight hundred 
pieces of artillery frown from its impregnable walls, and 
command the entrance to a magnificent harbor, which, to 
use the words of a late traveler, is " filled with ships of the 
" line and frigates," and in which they may safely ride free 
from the visits of a foe, unless the rock sides of Sweaborg 
can be scaled in the teeth of eight hundred cannon, and 
in spite of fifteen thousand men who man them. Here, 
too, the walls of the formidable batteries, being of solid 
granite, will not be likely to tumble down when the guns 



RUSSIA HAS FEW VULNERABLE POINTS. 205 

are fired, as was expected at Sebastopol. The fortress may 
be truly called impregnable. Within the harbor are not 
only the Russian fleets, but here, also, is one of the most 
extensive naval arsenals on the globe, and the chief recruit- 
ing station for the Emperor's navy. The province in which 
Sweaborg stands supplies the finest seamen of the North — 
those who are inured to hardship, and who gain experience 
and skill in the fisheries and trade of the Baltic — and here, 
too, are exhaustless supplies of the finest timber for the 
construction or repair of ships, as well as of pitch, tar, rosin, 
and other naval stores. Finland is intersected by numerous 
bays and lakes, communicating with each other in a man- 
ner which affords great facilities for the transport of these 
heavy materials ; while, even in this high latitude, its agri- 
cultural capacities procured for it the name of the granary 
of Sweden, to which government it formerly belonged. 
Here, safe from all hostile visits, and surrounded by mate- 
rials for unlimited construction, Russia may increase her 
navy, and accumulate her stores, restricted only by her 
necessities or the condition of her treasury. It is impos- 
sible, moreover, to cut her off" from her supplies, for they 
all reach this point by interior communications, which a 
foreign force can not touch. 

On the opposite shore of the entrance to the Gulf of Fin- 
land is Revel, another station for the Russian navy. Like 
Sweaborg, it is defended by extensive fortifications, whose 
strength Sir Charles Napier did not think proper to test 
with a fleet which many supposed would be able to annihi- 
late the Russian power in the Baltic. Its roadstead is among 
sheltering islands, and the town itself enjoys considerable 
trade. In the Aland Archipelago, a cluster of islands at 
the entrance of the Gulf of Bothnia, is another naval station. 
Several of these islands are stronglj r fortified, but the prin- 
cipal establishment is at Aland, which has a harbor capable 
of sheltering the whole fleet of Russia, and a citadel where 
sixty thousand troops may be quartered. Here is kept a 
numerous flotilla, which forms a good nursery for Russian 
seamen. The vicinity of these islands to the coast of Swe- 



206 RUSSIA HAS FEW VULNERABLE POINTS. 

den, some of them scarce thirty miles distant, forms perhaps 
their most important feature in a military point of view, 
for from them, at any time, a descent may easily be made 
upon the Swedish coast. 

Cronstadt is, however, the most important Russian for- 
tress in the Baltic, both as a naval station and as guarding 
the approach to St. Petersburgh. It is situated at the head 
of the Gulf of Finland, and only about sixteen miles from 
the Capital. The fortifications are constructed principally 
upon an island, on one side of which is a narrow channel, 
completely commanded not only by the long lines of guns 
upon the main island, but also by batteries placed upon vari- 
ous smaller islands and reefs, to say nothing of the powerful 
fleet alwa}^ stationed in the harbors. Of these harbors 
there are three, or rather the harbor may be said to be 
separated into three divisions. The outer one is probably 
the most important naval station of the Empire. From 
thirty to forty ships of the line may float here, in addition 
to smaller vessels. The second division contains ship-yards, 
docks, arsenals, warehouses, and all the stores and machinery 
necessary not only for ship building, but for the equipment 
and repair of the main division of the Russian navy. The 
third harbor is devoted to trade, and can easily shelter a 
thousand merchantmen. The channel leading from the 
Gulf to the Neva is said to be so narrow that a single ves- 
sel only can pass at once, and this passage must be effected 
between lines of cannon that could annihilate in a few 
minutes any ship that floats. Besides this, ships drawing 
more than nine feet of water can not ascend beyond Cron- 
stadt, so that. St. Petersburgh is absolutely secure from the 
visit of a hostile vessel, and the impregnable Cronstadt 
must be annihilated before an enemy could occupy the head 
of the Gulf. The population of Cronstadt, including the 
garrison and the marine, is said to be about forty thou- 
sand. 

The following very graphic description of Cronstadt, by 
an officer attached to the Baltic fleet, and written on the 
spot in 1854, and from personal survey of the works, will 



RUSSIA HAS FEW VULNERABLE POINTS. 207 

give the reader a correct idea of this celebrated fortress, 
and of the resources, science, and skill of the Power by 
whom these defenses have been constructed : 

" The island of Cronstadt lies in a bight betwixt the two 
shores of the Gulf, and is nowhere distant more than about 
six miles from the mainland on either side ; and even this, 
as a navigable distance, is so much straited by spits, shal- 
lows and mud-banks, that the actual passages are reduced 
to very confined limits. This is the case especially with 
the main channel, which runs betwixt the island and the 
south shore, and is so narrow and shallow that its naviga- 
tion alone, except under experienced and skillful guidance, 
is a difficulty. It widens and deepens a little, however, 
toward the southeast end, into a tolerably convenient and 
spacious anchorage, and turning thence toward the south, 
ends in an inner harbor, well locked, and sheltered by a 
bend in the land, and partly protected by the Oranienbaum 
spit, which juts out toward it from the south shore, and 
which, being covered by only a few feet of water, offers an 
effectual barrier to the approach of ships, and is impractic- 
able for the advance of troops. Two passages lead from 
this round the southeast side ; but these are so intricate, so 
environed by shallows and patches, that they are navigable 
only by vessels of a small class, and afford no regular com- 
munication with the north channel, which is broader and 
deeper in the center than the other, though it also becomes 
very shallow at some distance from the shore. The island 
itself is about six miles long, and a mile and a half wide at 
the southeast, its broadest part. This part represents the 
root, and hangs on, like a square piece, to the Tongue, 
which shoots out narrow and narrower toward the tip, 
until it ends in a few broken rocks, over which the waves 
ripple. Slightly raised above the level of the sea, a little 
barren tract of rock and sand, it would scarcely afford sus- 
tenance for a family, or feed a flock of sheep, yet now, cut 
into docks, covered with barracks and storehouses, and 



208 RUSSIA HAS FEW VULNERABLE POINTS. 

surrounded by forts, it is a prize which mighty nations 
strive to win and to keep. 

" Let us next see how art has so much enhanced the value 
of the spot we have been surveying. A first object in the 
design which sought to convert it into a naval arsenal was, 
of course, to find a suitable site for the clocks, magazines 
and defenses, which must grow around the harbor and an- 
chorage. The square end of the island was naturally 
adapted for this purpose. It had a sufficient and compact 
space for the building ; it was surrounded by the sea on all 
sides, save where it was joined by a narrow neck of land 
to the promontory beyond, and would thus be protected by 
a complete line of circumvallation ; and it offered, besides, 
a facility for digging immense basins on its south side, 
which might compensate for the smallness of the inner 
harbor, or Little Road, as it is called. There are three of 
these — the man-of-war, the middle, and the merchant har- 
bor — all entered by regular locks from the Little Road. In 
the two former a great part of the Russian ships lie during 
the winter months, while their crews are transferred to the 
barracks on shore. 

"The next step was to defend these harbors, and, as a 
consequence, the old-fashioned straggling fortress of Cron- 
stadt arose. Then came Fort Peter ; but, as time went on, 
it was deemed necessary that the Great Road, and even 
the entrance, should have their defenses. But the passage 
into the harbors was about mid-channel, and could not 
therefore be effectually commanded by forts on either shore. 
This was, however no obstacle, no difficulty to a system 
which has raised a city on a marsh ; and straightway there 
sprang up a succession of gigantic island fortresses, com- 
manding every approach, and threatening at many points a 
concentration of fire which must inevitably annihilate any 
attacking force. 

" We must review these forts in the reverse order from 
their construction, and begin from the outside, as though 
we were advancing to the attack. Let us suppose, then, 
that we are making for their entrance. The first object 



RUSSIA HAS FEW VULNERABLE POINTS. 209 

which presents itself is the Tulbuken, a tall, solid, beacon- 
tower, stanking on a rock, connected probably by a reef 
with the island shore. We steamed onward, and on the 
right hand, or south side, Fort Risbank rises before us, the 
latest in construction, but not the least formidable of these 
extraordinary erections. Like all the others, it is built on 
a foundation formed by piles driven into the mud. It has 
two tiers of casemates, and on its top are guns mounted en 
barbette. The front facing the entrance obliquely, presents 
a curve springing from the center, with a short curtain on 
either side, which at the angles rounds off into towers. The 
number of guns in this fort is variously stated, but we could 
count fifty-six. embrasures in this front beside the guns en 
barbette, and those which may be mounted on the rear face. 
In describing these fortifications, it is difficult to use the 
proper terms of art, as their peculiar construction and pecu- 
liar purposes required many and wide deviations from gen- 
eral principles. We must therefore try to be intelligible 
rather than scientific. A little farther on, on the left hand, 
or north side, Fort Alexander greets us, a huge round work, 
showing a semicircular front, bristling with four rows of 
guns, one row being en barbette. This fort is said to contain 
one hundred and thirty-two guns; they are of very large 
caliber, and their fire would effectually sweep the entrance 
of the channel, flanking and crossing that of Risbank. 
Passing Alexander, we are fairly in the Great Road, and 
come within range of Fort Peter, a low fortification, on the 
6ame side as Alexander but nearer to the island. Two low 
curtains, a large tower in the center, and smaller towers at 
either end, comprise the front of this work. It is not equal 
to the two others, either in dimensions or number of guns, 
but is still very formidable from its enfilading position. On 
the opposite side, just in front of the point of the Oranien 
baum spit, and flanking the mouth of the inner harbor, 
Cronslott, or Cron Castle, threatens us. This the eldest of 
the series, the first demonstration of the scheme of defense 
which has since been extended and multiplied so vastly, is 
inferior to its successors in design ang elaborate workman- 
14 



210 RUSSIA HAS FEW VULNERABLE POINTS. 

ship. Though rather a crude effort it answered its first 
purpose, as a single fortress, well enough, and even now 
would play no mean part in the flanking and concentrating 
combination which forms the main principle in the defense. 
Last, but not least, either in size or importance, Fort Mens- 
chikoff rises, vast and glaring, towering above all the 
others with its four tiers and its massive walls. This was 
evidently meant to be the crowning stroke of the inner, as 
Risbank was of the outer defenses. Unlike its brethren, 
it stands on terra firma, and is built near the mole-head, at 
the south angle of the square end of the island. It i3 
apparently a square, solid mass of masonry, constructed 
without any very elaborate or scientific plan, but presenting 
a front of casemated batteries which would flank Cronslott, 
and rake the approaches to the inner harbor with a tre- 
mendous fire. We might think that the achnie of defense 
had been attained by such an aggregation of fortresses; so 
thought not the Russians, for they have moored some of 
the line-of-battle ships of their fleet between Menschikoff 
and Cronslott, thus effectually barring the entrance to the 
inner harbors, and forming an overwhelming increase to 
the force already concentrated for their protection. Beyond 
this barrier line, and behind Menschikoff, are the basin8 
before spoken of, and behind them again are the great 
magazine, the dockyard and canal. More to the north are 
laid out the barracks and other public buildings. Such, 
and so defended, is the southern channel of Cronstadt. 
Such is the place which hair-brained theorists expected our 
fleet to attack and take. English hearts are stout — English 
ships are strong — English seamen are skillful ; but the man 
who would lead them against such fearful odds would lead 
them to certain destruction, and leave the country to mourn 
over a catastrophe greater and sadder than has yet clouded 
her annals. 

"Let us turn to the north side, and see what are there 
the characteristics of defense and the opportunities of at- 
tack. Passing round the Tulbuken, we trace a low glitter- 
ing kind of rocks just rising above the waters ; then a 



RUSSIA HAS FEW VULNERABLE POINTS. 211 

broader belt of red sand, slightly sprinkled with trees ; then 
come houses, trees, and some glimpses of vegetation, until 
the eye rests at last on a large, well-designed earthwork, 
not yet finished, around and about the mounds of which 
workmen are still busy with pickax, spade and barrow. 
Tracking onward, we follow the long, low beach, along 
which are rows of houses, masses of buildings, churches 
with their gilded cupolas and spires, and all the varied ob- 
jects which constitute the features of a town panorama; 
while behind and above all appear the tops of forts and 
masts of ships. Looking very closely and attentively, we 
can detect at intervals small batteries mounting a few guns, 
and carrying on a weak and broken line of defense, which 
terminates at the northeast extremity in a larger and more 
pretentious work. 

"Nothing very formidable here as yet — nothing very ob- 
structive, save the fact that large ships can not approach 
within a less distance than three miles ; but gun-boats and 
small vessels might easily advance within fair range of 
town and arsenals. Yes, this had been foreseen and pro- 
vided against by a novel and ingenious expedient. From the 
earthwork in the center of the island a barrier had been 
run out obliquely to a distance of three thousand } T ards, 
and then carried in a slightly deflecting line to the shore of 
the mainland, extending to a length of six or seven miles, 
and enclosing the passages opening from the north to the 
east and south sides of the island. The barrier consists of 
columns of* piles placed at a distance of eighteen feet, and 
rising within two feet of the surface of the water. These 
columns are formed of several piles driven into the mud in 
a circle, the center being filled with rubble. This would 
sufficiently secure the shore from sudden assaults, or the 
town from the danger and annoyance of a distant fire ; but 
the passages — the weak and vital points of the northern 
defense — could not be trusted to an obstacle so partial in 
its obstruction, and which a daring effort might destroy. 
Accordingly hulks, lightened for the purpose, were moored 
behind the barrier — in some parts within point-blank range 



£12 RUSSIA HAS FEW VULNERABLE POINTS. 

— effectually covering it through its whole extent, from the 
angle of the town to the main land. In rear of this, again, 
a fleet of gun-boats, under steam and sail, moved about 
ready to dash through the intervals and meet any assailant. 
Thus was a triple barrier raised — the first part merely ob- 
structive, the second defensive, the third motive, and cap- 
able of being made aggressive." 

It might have been expected, that a careless or inefficient 
government, without resources or military skill, or science, 
such as Russia has been represented to be, and relying 
upon the fact that the entrance to the Black Sea was closed 
by the fortresses of the Dardanelles, would have erected 
precisely such defenses as Oliphant would have the world 
believe those at Sebastopol were. In such a position, if 
anywhere, would be found the ill-constructed and neglected 
batteries, whose walls, ready to tumble with their own 
weight, could by no means stand the discharge of the guns. 
Here should have been found Russian officers without 
science or intelligence — here, admirals, such as Oliphant 
mentions, who lose their way between Odessa and Sebasto- 
pol, and flag-lieutenants, who propose to go ashore and 
inquire the way — instead of all which were fortifications . 
before whose massive strength the combined fleets of France 
and England only made themselves ridiculous, and where 
the utmost efforts of these Powers, with all the appliances 
of modern warfare, were completely foiled. 

The resources of the Russian Empire, in the East, re- 
quire no labored description. Siberia and the valley of the 
Amoor contain exhaustless supplies of timber and other 
naval stores. The Siberian rivers supply abundant facili- 
ties for transportation, and with the commerce of the East 
Indian seas open to her, and with all materials at her dis- 
posal, in positions inaccessible to an enemy, what shall 
hinder her from establishing on the Pacific naval stations, 
a mercantile and an armed marine which shall rival those 
of the "West ? Such a work would be naturally expected 



RUSSIA HAS FEW VULNERABLE POINTS. 213 

from what she has already performed elsewhere : it accords 
with the general spirit and policy of the government. 

The survey thus far made of the Northern Empire cer- 
tainly presents it in a most imposing aspect, and exhibits 
the necessary foundations of a national power, which, other 
things being equal, would doubtless prove an overmatch for 
all the rest of Europe. "Whether other fitting elements of 
strength and growth exist will be the subject of future in- 
quiry. It is seen that her territory is capable of supporting 
a population of hundreds of millions, without being more 
densely peopled than the rest of Europe. This territory 
occupies a commanding position in the temperate zone, 
stretching between the Pacific and the Atlantic, open to the 
commerce of Asia and Europe, and forming indeed a great 
national highway between them, on one side of the globe, 
such as America presents on the other. These vast posses- 
sions are traversed from side to side by channels of inter- 
communication, remote from hostile attack, while her few 
exposed points, strong by nature, have been rendered seem- 
ingly impregnable by whatever military science can perform. 
Within these defenses, warlike preparations of every kind 
can be carried on secure from interruption, while her treas- 
ures of military stores, and even her fleets, if she chooses, 
are placed beyond the reach of an enemy. In addition to 
all this, if the seas are closed against her by a superior 
maritime power, a large foreign commerce is still open to 
her from the East through her own territory, and her 
domestic productions and home trade are so extensive as 
to make her, so far as any nation can be, independent of a 
foreign commerce. 



214 RUSSIA CONTROLLED BY ONE RACE. 



CHAPTER XXI. 



RUSSIA CONTROLLED BY ONE RACE— THIS GIVES HER A TRUE NATIONAL 

LIFE. 



It is evident, that however extensive the territory of a 
nation may be, however productive its soil, or dense its 
population, there will still be no solid foundation for great 
and permanent national power if this population is com- 
posed of diverse races, bound together by the force of cir- 
cumstances only, or forced into contact, not union, by 
external lashings of any kind. The moment the compress- 
ing bond is loosened in such a case, the discordant mate- 
rials separate, and the whole mass of an imposing dynasty 
will suddenly crumble into fragments, which are scattered 
apart, because they are not the production of a common 
central life. Such has been the fate of most empires that 
have grown out of a succession of rapid conquests. Suc- 
cess has attended them, until the mass of material added 
could no longer be assimilated, until the national structure 
became a mere aggregation, not one living body, and the 
constituent parts instead of being united by mutual sym- 
pathies were hurled asunder by mutual repulsion. It has 
been fashionable to look upon liussia as occup} T ing this 
precise position, and to represent the Czar as ruling over a 
rude mass of heterogeneous and discontented tribes, held 



RUSSIA CONTROLLED BY ONE RACE; 215 

in subjection merely by a cruel and relentless military des- 
potism. 

These views gave rise to the expectation, that in 
in any sudden calamity, or in case of the death of Nicho- 
las, Russia would be separated into warring factions, and 
the Colossus of the North would vanish like the spectre 
of the Brocken. France and England pleased them- 
selves, and calmed in part their fears, by picturing the 
inherent weakness of the Muscovite Empire. The general 
tone which prevailed may be seen by the following ex- 
tracts from one of the ablest English Quarterlies, the North 
British, in November, 1854. The writer refers to a former 
article, in which was pointed out, as he says, " elements of 
" weakness in the Muscovite Empire which had never 
"hitherto been duly estimated." He goes on to say, "We 
" reminded our readers that the great conquests of Russia 
" had been effected by ^diplomacy and not by actual fightino-, 
" and that these conquests were annexed merely — not assimi- 
" lated. All things considered, it is by no means unlikely 
" that if the present war continues, she may turn out to have 
"been a gigantic impostor — that when tried by the severi- 
" ties of a real struggle, she will prove weak, to a degree 
" which will astonish those whom she has so long duped 
" and dazzled ; weak from her unwieldy magnitude — weak 
" from her barbarous tariffs and restrictive policy — weak 
" from the inherent inadequacy of her one-eyed despotism — 
" weak from the rottenness of her internal administration — 
" weak from the suppressed hatreds she has accumulated 
" round her — weak in everything save her consummate skill 
" in simulating strength." This was written in February, 
1854; in November, 1854, the same Review saj-s : "These 
" surmises, which at the time they were uttered were con- 
" sidered somewhat wild and rash, have been not only justi- 
"fied but surpassed by the event. The feebleness every- 
" where displayed by Russia, both in attack and defense, 
" have been matter of ceaseless astonishment. * * * As 
" soon as it was known that the expedition to the Crimea 
" was resolved upon, we took for granted that the Crimea 



216 THIS GIVES HER A TRUE NATIONAL LIFE. 

" would be conquered, and that Sebastopol would ultimately 
"fall into our hands ; but assuredly no one anticipated that 
" after months of notice, our armies would have been suf- 
fered to land without the faintest attempt at opposition; 
" that our victory would have been so signal, so decisive, 
" and so rapid ; or that the greatest fortified harbor of 
" Russia — probably the strongest in the world — would be 
" taken on such easy terms, and in so brief a period. Hence- 
" forth, the prestige of Russian military power is gone; 
" Europe need dread her arms no more. The Czar, hitherto 
" the great bugbear of Europe and of Asia, has been beaten 
" on all hands." 

In a subsequent portion of the same article, the writer 
boasts and exults as follows, giving, as will be sees, also, a 
highly significant side-roar of the British lion at the Ame- 
ricans, who, after such English victories in the Black Sea, 
will, he thinks, be a " trifle less insolent and overbearing," 
when they remember that the Baltic fleet can winter in the 
Gulf of Mexico : 

" But if Nicholas had been less rash or less stubborn we 
should never have been stirred into activity sufficient to 
afford the world the astounding spectacle it saw in April 
and May. In a few weeks time we sent forth the two 
largest and best-manned fleets that ever left our shores, and, 
beyond all parallel, the best equipped army that ever sailed 
from England on any expedition — both fleet and army pro- 
vided with every new invention of science to which expe- 
rience or judgment had given their sanction. * * The 
Baltic fleet alone consisted of forty-two ships, twenty-two 
hundred guns, sixteen thousand horse-power, and twenty- 
two thousand sailors and marines. 

"In 1852 and 1853, there were doubts whether we had 
either ships or men sufficient to defend our own shores 
against a sudden descent. In 1854 we sent to our Ally 
both laud and naval auxiliary forces, which have check- 
mated, conquered, and despoiled his colossal antagonist. 
All this, too, was done rapidly, silently, and easily ; regi- 



RUSSIA CONTROLLED BY ONE RACE; 217 

ments were recruited, and ships were manned, without diffi- 
culty ; volunteers flocked both to the militia and the navy; 
the moment there was a prospect of active service men were 
forthcoming in ample numbers, and neither conscription 
nor impressment had to be resorted to. This magnificent 
spectacle will not be lost either on Europe or America, or 
on ourselves. Already a great change of tone on all hands 
is observable. Our foes have had a forewarning with what 
sort of a people they will have to deal ; our transatlantic 
cousins will become a trifle less insolent and overbearing when 
they find that the fleet which summers in the Baltic can, with- 
out cost or effort, 'winter in the Gulf of Mexico." 

In the summer, then, England proposed to amuse herself 
with demolishing Russia, and in the winter she would be 
occupied with checking the insolence of her "transatlantic 
cousins." This, moreover, agrees with the declaration of 
Lord Clarendon, with the corresponding semi-official state- 
ment of the French government of the far-reaching inten- 
tions of the English and French Alliance, viz : that it had 
reference to the western as well as the eastern hemisphere. 
The Review thus sums up the results of the first campaign, 
up to November, 1854: 

"Russia, the great bugbear of Europe, and the great foe 
of free development, shorn of her prestige, baffled, beaten 
back, blockaded and despoiled — deprived, in a single year, 
of the conquests of half a century of intrigue and violence, 
not only thwarted and checked, but humbled and crippled, 
retreating across the Pruth in place of advancing beyond 
the Danube; and paying for the massacre of Sinope by 
the loss of Sebastopol and the Crimea. Such are the results 
of the first campaign." 

Such was the language, not of some vain, flippant trav 
eler, but of one of the gravest and stateliest Reviews of the 
British Empire, and when such a Quarterly as the North 
British will indulge itself in such transparent folly, we are 
led to believe that the British government really sent 



218 THIS GIVES HER A TRUE NATIONAL LIFE. 

forth its fleets and armies in this same spirit, and with the 
same opinions of Russia. What a scorching commentary 
upon such an article subsequent events have given ! 

These things are not mentioned for the purpose of taunt- 
ing or reproaching England, but as historical facts whose 
significance ought to be calmly considered by Americans. 
They show, first of all, the spirit of England in regard to 
Russia, and the worthlessness of most opinions and state- 
ments which have issued from the British press concerning 
their northern neighbors, and it should not be forgotten 
that these views, most derogatory to Russia, which are 
passing current in our country, have been derived from the 
representation of England. These facts show, moreover, 
the nature of the stake which the United States had in 
that Eastern war, an interest quite different from what 
many seem to suppose. They demonstrate a cherished 
purpose of England and France to interfere, not with Russia 
alone, but with the too rapid growth even of America. 

The English Reoiew pleases itself with a view of the in- 
ternal weakness of Russia and her eminent danger of being 
rent asunder by domestic strife. Oliphant, writing in 1853, 
dilates largely, and with evident satisfaction, upon this 
same topic, and would have us believe that the whole 
power of the Czar is needed to protect his throne against 
the discontents and threatened uprisings of his own 
subjects : 

" But the Russian Autocrat is also keenly alive to the 
critical position of matters at home. Before he decides 
upon prolonging indefinitely a hazardous contest, he will 
consider the present aspect of the internal condition of the 
empire as attentively as its external relations. He can not 
not forget that an extent of territory comprising one-half 
of what is now called Russia in Europe, has been annexed 
within the last sixty years — that, consequentl}', more than 
half of the European inhabitants of the empire, having been 
recently subjugated, are more or less disaffected; that of 
these, sixteen millions, or about one-fourth of the entire population 



RUSSIA CONTROLLED BY ONE RACE; 219 

of Russia, do not profess the Greek faith; that his Moham- 
medan subjects alone amount to two millions and a half; 
and that the protection of the Greek religion has been pro- 
claimed as the ground upon which the present anti-Mo- 
hammedan crusade was commenced. 

" Such is the present condition of those provinces which 
compose the European frontier of this vast empire. From 
the Baltic to the Black Sea — from the shores of the Danube 
to the banks of the Phasis — extends an indissoluble bond 
of common sympathy — a deep-rooted hatred of Russia, 
which nothing less than the dread of incurring the ven- 
geance of a despotism almost omnipotent could have re- 
strained so long ; and when at last the auspicious time 
arrives for giving vent to this feeling, the flame will kindle 
wildly in the recently-acquired kingdom of Poland, for 
there the revolutionary spark has never been extinguished. 
It is true that in the southern provinces of the empire all 
hope of freedom has long disappeared, and terror and op- 
pression have reigned so long that the inhabitants of the 
thinly-populated steppe have lost much of the energy of 
their Mongolian ancestors ; but while they may hesitate to 
start at once into open rebellion, they will not fail to use 
measures of passive resistance, as a means of opposing the 
designs of Russia. Opportunities will not be wanting to 
insure some degree of success. When the presence of the 
allied fleets in the Black Sea denies to the Czar transport 
for his troops from the ports upon its margin, in any one 
direction, divisions of the Russian army will often be com- 
pelled to march across the inhospitable steppes of the south ; 
and here, dependent for food and transport upon whatever 
a barren and thinly-populated country can supply, it is 
probable that they will find their wants altogether disre- 
garded. The Tartars have only to remove their families 
and their cattle out of the line of march to render the on- 
ward progress of the army a matter of the utmost difficulty, 
if not altogether impossible ; and thus they will be able to 
gratify at the same time their natural hatred to the Rus- 
sians, and their no less natural desire of retaining possession 



220 THIS GIVES HER A TRUE NATIONAL LIFE. 

of their own flocks and herds. Even this dejected race 
might be stimulated to more active measures by the presence 
upon their coasts of an overwhelming fleet hostile to Russia. 
It is impossible to foretell what the result may be of so 
novel a contingency. It rests with his Imperial Majesty to 
decide whether it will ever arise ; but whatever weight he 
may attach to these considerations, and whatever may be 
the conclusion at which he may ultimately arrive, the facts, 
in so far as they illustrate the present internal condition 
of the empire, are important ; for if, on the one hand, they 
combine to form any -of the grounds upon which Russia 
may ever be induced to acquiesce in conditions proposed by 
the Allied Powers of Europe, a due appreciation of the 
difficulties by which he is surrounded, and which have com- 
pelled her to pursue a course so repugnant to Muscovite 
pride, must materially influence those upon whom the im- 
portant task devolves of framing terms, the nature of which 
will depend in some measure upon the relative physical 
and moral condition of the hostile countries. But if, on 
the other hand, the attitude of Europe remains such that 
the Czar does not shrink from hazarding a war which must 
test the inmost resources of his empire, then it is well for 
the Powers who are engaged in the struggle to know what 
those resources are, lest, measuring them only by a standard 
provided by Russia, and judging of their value by reports 
which emanate from a source totally unworthy of credit, 
they forget that, when the different elements of which the 
nation is composed are incohesive as sand, the extent of a 
country which comprises scattered populations of various 
kindreds, differing in faith, habits, and interests, is really its 
weakness." 

These quotations and statements may serve to show the 
spirit of those who have for the most part been our teachers 
in regard to the character and resources of Russia; they 
may aid in guarding ourselves against prejudices derived 
from such sources, and prepare us at least to do justice to 



RUSSIA CONTROLLED BY ONE RACE; 221 

Russia by a calm, independent, and candid study of her 
actual condition and polic}'. 

From what has already been stated, it is evident that the 
Muscovite empire must be one of immense strength, ,f in 
connection with its other advantages its destinies are in the 
hands of one dominant race, whose social affinities are strong 
enough to produce one compact national unity, and if this 
race possesses an individuality of character which will not 
prevent it from being absorbed by any contiguous families, 
but which forbids even any essential modification. The 
case will be all the stronger if such a race is found to possess 
a vigor that displaces that with which it comes in contact. 
The power which such a social unity imparts to a nation, 
the tenacity of that national life of which it is the source, 
is well illustrated by the example of the Jews, who not only 
preserved through fifteen hundred years a clearly-defined 
national individuality, but are still, after ages of dispersion 
and oppression, distinguished by their national character- 
istics. The unexampled prosperity of America, and the 
compactness and efficiency of her national power, are owing 
mainly to the fact that her population has sprung princi- 
pally from a single root, which is covering the land with 
the vigorous shoots of one family tree, and the best guaranty 
for the future which our country now presents is the newly- 
awakened determination to preserve our national charac- 
teristics, and perpetuate our individual national life. (Still 
the proportion of the population of the United States which 
has descended from a single race is much smaller than it is 
in Russia. For although the number of foreign-born may 
not exceed two and a half millions, there are many more 
than this who are not of Anglo-Saxon parentage. 

The total population of Russia is differently estimated, 
even by those who are considered to be the best authorities. 
Mr. Hassel's tables give the number of inhabitants in 

1823, as 59,263,700 

Malte Brun believes this to be somewhat exaof- 

gerated, and estimates the number in 1827, 

at - 59,000,000 



222 THIS GIVES HER A TRUE NATIONAL LIFE. 

The London Quarterly, for April, 1854, states, 
upon what it declares to be good authority, 
the present population to be - - 70,000,000 

Alison estimates it, in 1840, at - 60,000,000 

and states the annual increase at near one 
million of souls, which would give now 

nearly 75,000,000 

If we take HassePs tables as the basis, and 
reckon according to the conceded rate of in- 
crease, the present population of the empire 
will appear to be about - 93,000,000 

If we adopt Malte Brun's estimate, the present 

number would reach about ... 90,000,000 
The calculation made by the English Reviewer is, it appears, 
very considerably below the estimates which other good 
authorities have supplied, and in the present condition of 
things, and the known temper of English writers in regard 
to Russia, we may safely assume the possibility at least of 
an under-estimate of the population of the empire. The 
mean of the four estimates given above is a little more 
than 80,000,000. But because the classification which is 
found in the tables of the Quarterly makes it convenient, to 
follow them, they will be mainly adopted, though the evi- 
dence seems conclusive that the number of inhabitants is 
greater than the reviewer has stated, and the subject de- 
mands a further examination. 

According to this English authority, of the seventy mil- 
lions now in the Russian empire fifty-eight millions belong 
to the Sarmatian race, of which fifty-six millions are of the 
Sclavonic branch, and forty-nine millions of these are 
Russians. 

Here, as is seen, are fifty-eight millions belonging to one 
race, fifty-six millions that have sprung from one branch of 
that race, and, as we learn from authority quite as good as 
the English Review, fifty millions bound together by all 
the ties of one family connection. Nowhere else in Chris- 
tendom can be found such a mighty, compact national unity 
as this. We may well illustrate it by supposing the 



RUSSIA CONTROLLED BY ONE RACE; 223 

population of the United States to be seventy millions, 
composed of native Americans, fifty millions; of English- 
men, eight millions ; and of all other races twelve millions. 
In such a case, it would at once he seen that the central 
dominant power would not only control but absorb the 
rest. The absurdity of all prophesies of the separation of 
such a nation on account of difference of race would at once 
appear. 

But, in estimating this feature of the strength of Russia, 
another important circumstance should not be overlooked. 
The Russian race proper occupy, geographically, the heart 
of the country, while the tribes which belong to the other 
races are distributed along the frontier. They are, there- 
fore, both from position and from character, incapable of a 
combination among themselves, and are, moreover, under 
the full influence of the assimilating power of the dominant 
race. By this influence, directed by the steady policy of 
Russia, the Finnish tribes have been almost completely 
transformed. Russia seeks everywhere not merely to an- 
nex, but to engraft and assimilate. She strives to diffuse 
everywhere the central Russian life, and to mold all that 
she gains into one homogeneous national body. That 
policy which now brings out so wide and hearty an approval 
from the American nation has been long and steadily pur- 
sued by Russia, and with marked success. She has strength- 
ened, by all methods within reach, a Russian sentiment — 
an attachment to the soil and to the national religion, a 
national pride, a national ambition. The vigorous pulsa- 
tions of the national heart are felt at the remotest extremity 
and the universal tendency is the substitution of the one 
Russian life for the individual life of the separate tribes of 
the frontiers, and there is a gradual melting of these indi- 
vidualities into the one national life. 

The native Russian holds the same relation to the other 
inhabitants of the empire that the native Americans do to 
the other population of the United States. The active, 
energetic, " pushing" man everywhere in the country is the 
native Russian. For him others make room. The Russian 



224 THIS GIVES HER A TRUE NATIONAL LIFE. 

may be properly called the Yankee of the East. By no 
means exhibiting now the lofty qualities of the Anglo- 
Saxon mind, there is yet in him a true life, whose power 
and destiny can not as yet be accurately measured. One 
might unite an American idiom with a Russian phrase, and 
say that the Russian is "bound" to "find out something." 
The man whom the Americans call "shiftless" the Russians 
describe as " one who can find nothing out." This may 
be regarded as indicating a national characteristic, an un- 
mistakable sign which points to future destiny. Fifty 
millions of people who are intent upon "finding something 
out" are not likely to play a secondary part in the affairs 
of Europe, while yet expanding with a vigorous life, and 
with an almost unlimited territory still unoccupied, abound- 
ing with the sources of national wealth and power. 

It ill becomes any of the Powers of western Europe, 
and least of all, England, to predict a dissolution of the 
Russian empire because her population is composed of a 
variety of races, when a comparison is instituted between 
her situation and theirs. In Great Britain are onty about 
nineteen millions of Englishmen out of thirty millions of 
inhabitants, and in France are but thirty-two m'llions of 
Frenchmen out of about thirty-six millions of inhabitants. 
Austria, it is said, has with her Germans some seventeen 
millions of Sclavonians, while in Russia are no less than 
fifty millions that present an almost complete family iden- 
tity, nearly forty millions of whom speak exactly the same 
language, from the highest in society to the lowest. Such 
a social unity is presented in no other spot among civilized 
nations, and it forms an element of power, whether for 
defense or offensive war, which, with the aids of an appro- 
priate civilization, would be perfectly irresistible. "What 
the characteristics of Russian civilization really are, and 
what promise it gives for the future, is a question which 
will be considered hereafter. 

This immense mass is not only bound together by family 
ties, not only speaks one language, but the uniformity of a 
single national household prevails in the manners and 



RUSSIA CONTROLLED BY ONE RACE; 225 

customs, including even dress, among nearly forty millions of 
the people, manifesting one great Russian nationality. Tc 
these interlacing bonds must be added another, stronger 
than them all, that of a common religion, which has a deep 
hold upon the national mind, because with the Russian 
people the age. of faith has not yet passed away. The 
skepticism of western Europe has, as yet, exerted little in- 
fluence upon Russia. The doctrines of the church are to 
the mass of the people solemn verities, and in the religious 
ceremonies there is to them, as yet, a solemn meaning. 
Bigotry and superstition doubtless, to a great extent pre- 
vail ; but as an element of power, as well as a basis of 
national life, a deep, sincere, though misguided religious 
sentiment, is far superior to the infidelity of France or Ger- 
many : a skepticism indeed, which almost universally now 
underlies the forms of the Roman Catholic Church. As a 
bond of union, and as an exciting cause whereby to arouse a 
national enthusiasm, and knit a people into one firmly com- 
pacted body, the religion of Russia bears some resemblance 
to the Roman Catholic Church in the days of its strength 
and vigor. Russia is capable of being aroused and mad- 
dened for a religious war; and the course of the govern- 
ment now shows most clearly that it fully understands, and 
is prepared to use, this truly terrific power, another tie 
which unites in one the great Russian family, is an attach- 
ment to the soil, or rather, as the distinction is properly 
made by Haxthausen, an ardent patriotism ; and this idea 
perhaps, has never been so well expressed elsewhere, as by 
him in the following extract from his work : 

" Their country, the country of their ancestors, the Holy 
Russia, the people fraternally united under the scepter of 
the Czar, the communion of faith, the ancient and sacred 
monuments of the realm, the tombs of their forefathers — • 
all form a whole which excites and enraptures the mind of 
the Russian. They consider their country as a sort of kins- 
manship, to which they address the terms of familiar endear- 
ment. God, the Czar, and the priest, are all called Father, 
15 



226 THIS GIVES HER A TRUE NATIONAL LIFE. 

the Church is their Mother, and the Empire is always 
called Holy Mother Russia. The Capital of the Empire is 
Holy Mother Moscow, and the Volga, Mother Volga. Even 
the high road from Moscow to Vladimir is called ' Our 
dear Mother the high road to Vladimir.' But above all, 
Moscow, the Holy Mother of the land, is the center of Rus- 
sian history and tradition, to which all the inhabitants of 
the empire devote their love and veneration. Every Rus- 
sian entertains all his life long the desire to visit one day 
the great City, to see the towers of its holy churches, and 
to pray on the tombs of the patron saints of Russia. Mother 
Moscow has always suffered and given her blood for Russia, 
as all the Russian people are ready to do for her." 

If Baron Haxthausen, whose book is admitted to be the 
best extant on Russia, has not painted this picture in colors 
somewhat too warm* then the civilized world has cause to 
regard Russia with the liveliest interest. Fifty millions of 
people animated by such a spirit are capable either of bless- 
ing or cursing the world, to an extent to which history 
probably can furnish no parallel ; because this tremendous 
power, thus treasured as it is in fifty millions of hearts — a 
spiritual force — has at its disposal all means of destruction 
or defense that are known to modern war. Such a people 
may not possess the impulsiveness of the French soldier, 
which hurls him like a shot on his foe ; they may not be equal 
in individual prowess to the English, but there is a self- 
sustaining power of endurance that exhausts and wears out 
its enemy, that clings obstinately to its purposes, rising 
afresh from every defeat, prepared for, and undertaking or 
resisting a new attack. This patriotism, that suffers all 
things sooner than permit an invader to rest securely on 
their soil, this spirit that waits and watches, and suffers 
long, until its opportunity shall come, has been manifested 
too often to be doubted any longer. When Russia has been 
reported through all Europe as beaten continually, in battle 
after battle, when all the nations are summoned to exult 
over her ruins, then the issue has ever been the overthrow 



RUSSIA CONTROLLED BY ONE RACE J 227 

of her adversary. The Russians have thus far in the end 
shaken every invader from them, and made reprisals upon 
their foe. 

The grand army of Napoleon fell before this inextin- 
guishable love of country, which preferred the sacrifice of 
all rather than endure the presence, on their own soil, of 
foreign troops, and despisers of their religion ; to which 
the ruins and ashes of Smolensko and Moscow were a less 
mournful sight than a hostile army trampling on their con- 
secrated places and the graves of their fathers. It is 
perhaps consoling to French and English feelings to devise 
hard names for such a spirit, to call it fanaticism, bigotry, 
superstition, etc.; but it should not be forgotten that, not- 
withstanding this gift of hateful epithets, its qualities re- 
main the same, its power is undiminished, and the soldiers 
stand as steadily to their guns, and throw their shot and 
shell with an aim as fatally accurate, as if they had applied 
to them terms of admiration and endearment. The char- 
acteristics of the Russian people, their determination to 
defend their country to the last, are not to be changed by 
bitter language, or by railing at the Czar as a bigot, or 
coward, or hypocrite, or fanatic, or unmanly rejoicing at 
the news of his death. Still another element which serves 
to produce a national unity in Russia, the influence of which 
is likely to extend far beyond the present limits of her 
dominions, is a national vanity and a world-wide ambition, 
which no one can approve of, and a traditionary belief that 
the Sclavonian race is yet to rule the world. E veiy Russian, 
it is said, high and low, entertains the undoubted opinion, 
that his race will yet control the destinies of the nations, 
and regards all events as only sweeping on toward this 
ultimate end. This may be condemned or ridiculed as 
mere vanity, as an absurdity, demanding no serious atten- 
tion ; and yet it is a fact, and in connection with other 
things it becomes an important fact, not to be disregarded 
in the calculation by which we would measure the power 
and determine the future of Russia. Though we may be 
disposed to reject the idea, that what individuals and 



228 THIS GIVES HER A TRUE NATIONAL LIFE. 

nations perseveringly believe themselves capable of they 
do generally accomplish, this national characteristic must 
not be forgotten as a chief element of national power. 

The misleading character of most of the statements concern- 
ing Russia is clearly seen in the light of these facts. Noth- 
ing could be further from the truth than to represent this em- 
pire as unwieldy and inefficient, as a mass of crude material 
cohering so slightly as to be in perpetual danger of falling 
into fragments, or of being rent asunder by internal dis- 
sension. Those who thus represent the Muscovite nation 
either know nothing of the real Russian, and are painting 
the creature of their dreams, or for special purposes they 
studiously misrepresent. The central homogeneous mass 
of Russia, its compact and vigorous nationality, as com- 
pared with the various tribes that skirt its wide frontier, 
may be regarded as a mighty continent with a fringe of 
islands scattered along its shores. This shows also how 
vain are all expectations that the death of a Czar will 
essentially modify the settled policy of the Empire, or 
endanger its peace. Russia has evidently entered upon a 
career which is the combined result of her geographical 
position, the nature of her resources, the condition of 
Europe, her national religion, and the genius of her people. 
These have prescribed for her. under the guidance of the 
God of nations, a national mission, which the west of Europe 
will not prevent her from executing. A national policy, 
with its general features very clearly defined, has become 
inwrought in the public mind of Russia, and that policy 
will not be suddenly changed, much less abandoned, because 
the characteristics of a great nation can not be at once 
obliterated. Although the character of him who wears the 
crown may accelerate or retard the progress of such a nation, 
it will, under any leader, still move onward toward its 
ultimate goal. Like a staunch and well-appointed ship, 
with a competent crew united in the determination to prose- 
cute a definite voyage, that pauses not even though its com- 
mander dies, so the national career of fifty millions of united 
people belonging to one family will not be abandoned on 



RUSSIA CONTROLLED BY ONE RACE. 229 

account of the loss of any one leader. Her national unity 
is capable of being extended safely from the Atlantic to the 
Pacific, and the Powers of western Europe will not be able 
to arrest even her southward march by underrating her 
strength and resources, nor by sneers at her barbarism, her 
fanaticism, or her despotism. Her barbarism is found 
strangely connected with the very highest military science, 
her fanaticism appears very much like an enthusiasm for 
religion and country, and her despotism has not driven the 
people from an ardent support of the throne. 



230 THE NATIONAL SENTIMENT OF RUSSIA. 



CHAPTER XXII. 



THE NATIONAL SENTIMENT OF RUSSIA AS AFFECTING NATIONAL POLICY 
AND DESTINY. 



One of the most suggestive facts taught by history is, 
that very often individuals who have reached positions of 
commanding influence have early felt a consciousness of 
their powers, and have apprehended the general features of 
their allotted task ; a facjt which, perhaps, gave rise to the 
remark of a distinguished English writer, that, in general, 
a man's aspirations may be taken as the measure of his 
capabilities. The remark has doubtless truth for its found- 
ation, though it must be received only with important 
qualifications. The same thing is true of some nations 
which have held a sovereign's place among the kingdoms 
of the world. It appears that in some manner, none, per- 
haps, can tell how, a national sentiment has arisen pointing 
to some specific ultimate destiny. Its beginnings and its 
progress seem removed from all ordinary causes, till a well- 
defined public opinion pervades all classes — becomes, as it 
were, the national soul, and shapes the national policy. 
And, whatever extravagance human pride may attach to 
such popular convictions, there is often a most remarkable 
general resemblance between such national anticipations 
and the results actually reached. When once such a senti- 
ment has been established, and become inwoven with the 



THE NATIONAL SENTIMENT OF RUSSIA 231 

national faith — when it has been handed down as a tradi- 
tional belief from the fathers — it is readily seen that its 
power is almost resistless. It shapes all national action, 
because the national mind is ever reaching out for the ac- 
complishment of destiny. It prompts ever to effort, at the 
same time that it gives to power a definite direction. It 
sustains the courage of a nation under the severest reverses, 
because it believes that a superior power has already deter- 
mined its ultimate success. It is national faith which, as 
in the individual, prompts to effort, and goes far to make 
achievement sure. 

The doctrine of " manifest destiny" may not be dismissed 
with a sneer. Faith in her destiny has given a specific 
direction to the national energies of Great Britain, and has 
made her so long mistress both of the seas and of the com- 
merce of the world. Faith in destiny rolled the fiery, 
blood}' deluge of Mohammedanism into Europe. Faith in 
manifest destiny established the Western Empire, under 
Charlemagne ; it had made Rome before ; and it has upheld 
the Anglo-Saxon race in all its wondrous career. The 
American mind expands with a vast idea — its " manifest 
destiny." Thousands condemn, and thousands ridicule, 
and yet the conception has its origin in the circumstances 
of national position, and in national character; if has 
shaped itself to existing wants, and even existing proba- 
bilities, and its very existence is the herald and guaranty 
of future accomplishment. 

The fact that such an idea may possess the mind of a 
nation, and may become a reality in the course of its pro- 
gress, does by no means determine its moral character, or 
prove that the steps are justifiable in themselves by which 
a great national end is finally reached. God causes the 
wrath of man to praise him, and national sins will no less 
be punished because committed in working out a previously 
appointed destiny. Connected with this subject another 
fact should be remembered. No nation, probably, has been 
conscious of the hour when it passed its culminating point, 
and when its mission was accomplished, but, on the con- 



2SS AS AFFECTING NATIONAL POLICY AND DESTINY. 

trary, retains in the decay and infirmity of old age the 
brightest anticipations of its youth, and all the pride of its 
day of vigor and of power. It refuses to perceive that the 
scepter has passed into other hands, and still pompously 
commands the obedience ot the world. It is not generally 
difficult to determine whether such a national sentiment is 
connected with a youthful and expanding life, or whether 
it belongs to the empty and powerless vanity of old age. 

If now, with these facts in view we turn to Russia, we 
find all travelers testifying to the existence of two national 
opinions, which may be said to be universal with the fifty 
millions of the Russian race. One opinion is. that they are 
to possess Constantinople, and the other, that they are des- 
tined to become the most powerful nation of the world, and 
to control all Europe, at least, if not the world. Upon fifty 
millions of minds the impression seems to have been made, 
whether true or false, whether pointing to a reality in the 
future or not. that Russia is entrusted with a great mission 
in the social regeneration of the world. Whence this im- 
pression has arisen who shall pretend to say ; that it will 
find no corresponding reality in the future who will venture 
with confidence to declare? That the national, or it may 
also be called the traditional, policy of the empire is founded 
upon these ideas, is now known probably to all. That fact 
alone is worthy of attentive consideration, bceau-e it shows 
that the course of Russia is the result of a national impulse, 
and that no change of rulers can essentially alter the policy 
to which the nation has committed itself, and may admon- 
ish the Towers of western Europe that it is no easy matter, 
even by severe reverses, completely to annihilate the pride 
and the hopes of fifty millions of people, subvert an all- 
pervading national sentiment, and compel a great empire to 
a new line of policy. 

In estimating the influence of these sentiments as elements 
of power in a national movement, it must not. be forgotten 
that they are found nut alone in the breasts of the Emperor 
and the nobles, or a few restless and ambitious men, but 
they are cherished and firmly believed in by the lowest of 



THE NATIONAL SENTIMENT OF RUSSIA. 233 

the peasantry, and made the basis of a truly national antici- 
pation — they are but the expression of a national thought, 
and the determination of a whole people; and when to thi8 
is added the fact that this hope stands inseparably connected 
with the spread of their national religion, it becomes evi- 
dent that this idea of " manifest destiny" is the source of 
a power whose importance can scarcely be overrated. It 
renders Russia most mighty for the accomplishment either of 
good or evil. The following is an extract from a late Ame- 
rican writer, who regards everything Russian with a some- 
what unfavorable eye, and presents his opinion of the 
character of that race upon whom the national sentiment 
alluded to is working with greatest power. 

" The great Russian lives to an extreme old age, longer, 
upon an average, than the man of another country. His 
generative power is remarkable. In central Russia the in- 
crease of the population is beyond all former precedent in 
Europe; while the natives of the conquered provinces are 
diminishing with fearful rapidity, the population of the 
whole empire, refreshed from this exhaustless source, counts 
every year another million among its multitudes. Thou- 
sands and tens of thousands, in a perpetual stream, flow 
from this fountain head into the vast regions of the north, 
south, east, and west. In every country, and among every 
people beneath the scepter of the Czar, the Weliki Russian 
will be found, asserting the supremacy of his race, and 
showing his skill and cunning. All the tribes with whom 
he comes in contact yield to his activity, and dwindle in 
significance before the progress of his encroachments. He 
even penetrates beyond the frontiers of the empire. While 
he profits as a merchant, he is often the secret agent of the 
government. His advance precedes the march of armies, 
and his aggression pave the way to conquest." 

"When the idea of a definite national mission or destiny 
has taken full possession of such a race, it is very likely to 
produce important results. The portrait drawn by this 



234 AS AFFECTING NATIONAL POLICY AND DESTINY. 

author can scarcely fail to remind one of many of the char- 
acteristics of the American race ; and when he adds that 
these Russians are ignorant and dishonest, it should be 
borne in mind that the Yankees have by no means escaped 
imputations of this kind, and yet New England is the work 
of Yankees. And if, as the author affirms, the Russian in 
his superstition imagines that a great work has been com- 
mitted to his country, in the social regeneration of the 
world, it must be confessed that a similar superstition has 
seized also on the minds of Americans. It would perhaps 
be interesting to study the present prevailing national sen- 
timent in the prominent nations, and inquire how far these 
presentiments may shadow forth the actual future. The 
following is probably near the truth. Russia and America 
are full of boundless hope, and even confidence of ruling, 
each over half a world. They think of nothing less than 
expansion on every side, and progress reaching far into the 
future. France hopes to head a combination of western 
States. England is filled with apprehension, and no defi- 
nite future opens before her. The preservation of what 
she possesses is probably the prominent thought. Austria 
and Prussia are nearly in the same position, while Turkey 
is oppressed with a sense of approaching ruin. "Will not 
these sentiments be very likely to produce a corresponding 
reality ? 

Certain it is that England is no longer the head of wes- 
tern Europe. She follows in the train of Catholic France, 
and we are led anxiously to inquire to what extent she may 
yet put on the Papal yoke, when such a man as Lord John 
Russell, with his suite and family, attends high mass with 
all signs of sincere devotion. When those who are at the 
head of the affairs of England stand in such relations to 
the Papal power, and she deliberately allies herself with the 
Latin Church, choosing as she declared, a western combin- 
ation in favor of the Roman Catholic Church, rather than 
the progress of Russia and the Greek Christianity, Ameri- 
can Protestantism may well find cause to rejoice in the tra- 
ditional sentiment of the Muscovite Empire, which haa 



THE NATIONAL SENTIMENT OF RUSSIA. 235 

placed it as the present sole bulwark in Europe against this 
new advance of the Papacy. 

The world may well hope that both Russia and the 
United States may attain unto what they consider their 
manifest destiny, because they are the only great Powers 
of the world now, which can be fully relied upon in the 
present struggle with Rome. With the religious aspect of 
the Eastern war fully and clearly before her, England has 
espoused the quarrel of the Pope, and with this evidence of 
her spirit presented to the world, who shall say that in the 
terrible struggle for principle, and for faith, upon which 
the nations have apparently entered, she will again ally 
herself to the right. 



236 THE EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS OF RUSSIA. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 



THE EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS OF RUSSIA. 

The Crimean war was declared by England and France 
to be a war of civilization against barbarism. The London 
Quarterly for April, 1854, holds the following language, in 
which is expressed the sentiment that England is industri- 
ously striving to spread abroad : " If this contest is to be 
" waged between the forces of civilization and liberty against 
" those of a semi-barbarous empire, aspiring to crush the inde- 
"penclence of Europe, we neither doubt nor dread the issue 
" of the war in which England and France have been com- 
" felled to engage." How will this appear when impartial 
history shall show that Russia, so far from being aggressor 
in that war, was compelled by the meddling intrigues of 
French Jesuitism either to yield to the pretensions of Rome 
or defend her own equal rights by arms ? How the charge 
of barbarism which rings out from the English Press, and 
which a portion of the American Press is disposed to echo, 
will stand by the side of facts which will soon be presented, 
the reader will judge. 

The North British Review, for November, 1854, in describ- 
ing what the consequences of success, then considered cer- 
tain, would be, says : " Europe would be for generations, 
if not for centuries and forever, liberated from the dangers 



THE EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS OF RUSSIA. 237 

of a semi-oriental barbarism, and England and France, differ- 
ing in the forms, but yet harmonious in the tendencies of 
their civilization, might go to rest in each others arms. It 
seems indeed not unlikely that Protestant England will lie 
down in the arms of Catholic France, but whether she will 
awake and find herself still Protestant England admits at 
least of question. " Semi-oriental barbarism" is the phrase 
applied by this religious journal to Russia. " A war of 
" civilization against barbarism, of liberty against depot- 
"ism," and on this ground an appeal was made by England 
and France to the sympathies of the world, and especially 
of Republican America. 

That the Crimean war was in no sense a war of liberty 
against despotism will be made to appear, and we shall be 
enabled to judge of the barbarism of Russia, and of the 
spirit and tendency of her institutions, by a glance at her 
educational systems. We shall be able to decide from these 
whether Russia presents a stationary barbarism, without 
internal life or vigor, or whether she exhibits the spectacle 
of a nation rapidly assuming the forms of a superior civil- 
ization, and with vigorous step advancing in the career of 
solid improvement, aiming in all her institutions to cultivate 
and develope her own individual national life. We only 
deceive ourselves when we seize upon phrases such as liberty 
and despotism, civilization and barbarism, and use them in 
describing Russia, without a careful study of her position 
and character. 

In studying even an imperfect sketch of the educational 
system of the empire of the Czar, it should be borne in 
mind that the popular conception seems to be, that what- 
ever improvement has been made in Russia is due to 
foreigners alone. Her army, it is said, is officered by for- 
eigners ; by them her ships have been built, her fortifica- 
tions have been constructed; by them her cannon have 
been cast, and by them her schools are taught. But another 
conception of this nation is of a people earnest, active, and 
capable of availing themselves freely of the world's science, 
experience and skill, to aid them in their work of national 



238 THE EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS OF RUSSIA. 

elevation. It will be found that the latter idea alone can 
explain the character of her educational system. The mili- 
tary schools, as the most prominent, first demand attention. 
The exact condition of these schools now is not known, but 
insomuch as they have received the constant and most zeal- 
ous attention of the government, it is to be presumed that 
the cause of education keeps pace with the improvements 
and discoveries of modern science, and that the number of 
pupils increases in proportion to the growth of the empire. 
Some years since, the number of pupils at the military 
schools was reported as follows : 

Pupils at Military Schools under Grand Duke 

Michael, - * - - - - 8,733 

Pupils at Navy Board Schools, - - 2,224 

Total, .... 10,957 

The above are principally, if not entirely, from the best 
families of the empire, and are subjected to the most thorough 
scientific and military training, a course which, for com- 
pleteness and finish, is not exceeded by any schools of the 
world. By common consent of all who know their char- 
acter, they are admitted to have no superior. Some detail 
will hereafter be given. These eleven thousand supply the 
officers for the army and navy. In addition to these there 
were at the same time in the schools under the direction 
of the Minister of War one hundred and sixty-nine thousand 
pupils, making in all nearly one hundred and eighty thou- 
sand of the very flower of the Russian youth, a number 
which, with the increase of the population, may now be 
reckoned at two hundred thousand, who are receiving at 
the hands of the government the most complete military 
education that the science of the world is capable of sup- 
plying. 

This fact bears with great force upon the question of the 
military power of Russia, and might be profitably consid- 
ered by those who insist that the army of the empire is in- 
capable of becoming efficient. The world beside, exhibits 
no such spectacle, no such scientific preparation for war, 



THE EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS OP RUSSIA. 239 

and the fortresses, the armament and gunnery, bear ample 
testimony to the proficiency of these scholars. 

Although for convenience sake, reference has been made 
to the estimate made by the London Quarterly of the popu- 
lation of the Empire, yet the preponderance of evidence 
would seem to show that the number stated is too small, 
and that eighty millions is now nearer the truth. This in- 
deed is the estimate of a writer lately quoted in another 
English Review; while the calculations of Malte Brun 
would swell the present population beyond even this. But 
admitting the existence of eighty millions on Russian soil, 
having a formidable, active, united race, as the central life 
and power of the mighty mass, it is an important question, 
not for Europe alone, but for Americans to study, what is 
to be the influence of such a power upon the world's des- 
tiny, when directed by the flower of the Empire, with the 
most thorough military education ? Let those who sup- 
pose that the power of this great empire is to be suddenly 
checked, or even ultimately repressed, until its national 
mission is accomplished, study the influence of the schools 
attentively, and they will find good cause to review their 
opinions. 

Let Americans consider the effect which our one small 
military school has produced upon our army, and even upon 
the whole nation, and then estimate if they can, the power 
created by the constant education of ten or twelve thousand 
such young men for the control of the Russian armies, and 
of the regular training of one hundred thousand more in 
the acquisition of the arts of war. No system of detraction, 
however skillful or deliberate, or perseveringly maintained, 
will prevent such institutions from working out their legiti- 
mate results ; and France and England have been compelled 
reluctantly to admit that they met in the Crimea a military 
science, particularly in engineering, more excellent than 
their own. This skill, which baffled the allied armies before 
Sebastopol, and which devised and directed the terrible 
artillery that hurled defiauce and death from its walls, has 
been acquired in these military schools; and when it is 



240 THE EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS OF RUSSIA. 

remembered that many of these most efficient guns are 
taken from the ships in the harbor, it may awaken some 
reflections as to what the gunnery of the Russian navy may 
yet accomplish. Some idea of the completeness of the edu- 
cation in these schools may be obtained from a few facts. 

The system of Russian fortifications by which the empire 
is defended, is separated into ten distinct divisions. In the 
old Michael off palace, now the School of Engineers, in St. 
Petersburgh, a separate hall is allotted to each of these 
divisions, in which is collected whatever can illustrate the 
character of the district which the hall represents, and the 
fortifications which it contains. Here, for inspection and 
6tudy, are plans general and in detail, of all the fortifica- 
tions of the empire, arranged according to their territorial 
divisions, and not only of all the fortresses, but of all that 
have been projected and are yet unfinished, and each par- 
ticular fortress has a department by itself, in which are col- 
lected specimens of the materials used or to be employed 
in its construction, including bricks and kinds of earth, and 
descriptions of stone which can be found in the neighbor- 
hood, so that each pupil has in this way a local education 
in addition to his general scientific training. Here also, as 
subjects for study, are accurate models in wood and clay of 
every fortification in Russia, presenting each with perfect 
exactness, so that not a single object, even to a tree, is 
omitted. By such means, the study of the defenses of each 
fortification, and the manner in which it might be attacked, 
may be conned on as perfectly as if on the spot, and every 
cadet, when he graduates, is prepared for any post in the 
country, understanding beforehand all the local character- 
istics of the station to which he is appointed. 

It is strongly significant of the traditional policy and 
prevailing feelings of the nation, that here also is a perfect 
and most minute plan of the fortifications of Constanti- 
nople ; the castles of the Dardanelles, with every feature, 
are presented, together with the aspect and character of the 
Straits, so that every young Russian officer studies the 
nature of an attack on Constantinople in addition to his 



THE EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS OF RUSSIA. 241 

general preparation for war. A single fact is sufficient to 
show the practical character of the instruction in the naval 
schools — the senior class of cadets annually take in pieces 
and rebuild a large model of an American frigate. The 
instruction in these schools embraces the higher mathe- 
matics, and their application to military and naval architec- 
ture, and navigation, drawing in all its departments, both 
the theory and practice of the construction of fortresses 
and ships, with modern languages, history, and general 
literature. 

The children of soldiers, and especially the orphan chil- 
dren, are particularly cared for by the government, placed 
in schools, and educated for the army. At St. Petersburgh 
there is the Miner's School. It occupies a magnificent 
building, in which more than three hundred pupils are con- 
stantly studying under competent professors, with every 
facility for obtaining an education having great breadth 
and thoroughness. In this institution the pupil spends 
eight years, and then, with as perfect a training as science 
can impart, he is sent to superintend the government mines 
in the Ural ; and this school and the number of its pupils 
is enough to indicate the importance of that portion of the 
resources of Russia. 

Attached to this important school is an immense and 
very complete collection of whatever can illustrate the 
sciences of geology and mineralogy, but particularly that 
of Russia. These several museums, rich, it is said, beyond 
comparison with any similar collections elsewhere, contain 
minerals, geological specimens, and fossils, from the most 
interesting localities, not only in Russia but from other 
parts of the world, and here also are collected models of 
machinery, and implements, and even models of mines them- 
selves. The completeness of the education which the gov- 
ernment bestows upon its servants, and the enlightened 
character of its policy, may be seen in the expenses incurred 
and the pains which have been taken to prepare those who 
are to have the care of the public mines and the imperial 

mint. 

16 



242 THE EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS OF RUSSIA 

In addition to what has been already described, artificial 
mines of various kinds have been constructed by the actual 
excavation of subterranean galleries, such as are found in 
the real mine, and a fac simile of a mine in the Ural is pro- 
duced, with the real earth, rocks, and imbedded ores and 
minerals, precisely as they are found in the distant moun- 
tains. Here the Geological student beholds the iron, the 
copper, the coal, the precious stones, and the gold, in their 
natural position, and precisely as he will meet them in his 
future operations in the actual mines. Certainly no more 
admirable device could be found for preparing the students 
of this school for the duties of real life. Is there any gov- 
ernment in the world which has undertaken the develope- 
ment of its mineral resources on so magnificent a scale, and 
in a manner so thoroughly scientific and at the same time 
so practical ? 

The Academy of Fine Arts is a building four hundred 
feet long and seventy feet high, in which is not only a mag- 
nificent picture gallery, but a school of Art, in which three 
hundred pupils are supported and educated. A school of 
the Arts is also maintained by the government, in which 
two hundred students, the sons of tradesmen, receive not 
only a general education, but also special instruction in the 
mechanical arts, and who are sent for the general improve- 
ment of the country by directing its various branches of 
labor. There is a Normal School of importance ; the Uni- 
versity, with five hundred students and fifty-eight profes- 
sors ; a Medical College, with five hundred pupils ; a Female 
Institute, in which four hundred young ladies are gratui- 
tously educated ; and there are also theological, commercial, 
and other schools of various character. 

Among these the Agricultural School deserves particular 
mention. A farm of seven hundred acres has been laid out, 
under the direction of the government, and on the premises, 
an agricultural school has been established, where both the 
theory and the practice of agriculture are taught to two 
hundred young peasants. An extensive museum is attached 
to this farm containing whatever relates to the occupation 



THE EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS OF RUSSIA. 243 

of a farmer, including all descriptions of agricultural imple* 
ments, even to the latest improvements known in America, 
Here also the finest breeds of cattle are collected, and 
model cottages are introduced, with the design of improving 
the architecture of the Russian farmers, which resembles 
very much the log-cabins of our own " backwoods." Each 
province is allowed to send annually a certain number to 
this school, and each year fifty graduates are distributed 
through the country, bearing abroad the skill and science 
which they have obtained in a four-years' course. 

The pupils are also taught here the various trades which 
may be either useful to a farmer remote from markets, or 
which can be followed as a business by the pupils. Black- 
smiths' and carpenters' work, cooperage, the construction 
of agricultural implements, tailoring, shoemaking, and cab- 
inet making, are included in the course of instruction, 
and connected with the school is a foundry, a brick-yard, 
a pottery, a tan- yard, and a wind-mill. 

As by the testimony of candid travelers this establish- 
ment is well conducted, its influence must be extensively 
felt in the development of the agricultural resources of the 
country. Great care is taken in this school for farmers 
to show how the principles of agricultural science shall be 
applied to particular localities, so that the education of the 
pupils becomes eminently practical and available. At the 
conclusion of the course each graduate is presented with a 
farm and one thousand roubles to stock it, and the govern- 
ment encourages them to become, by theory and practice, 
the teachers of the neighborhood in which they are located. 

Baron Haxthausen, whose notes on Russia are among 
the most reliable sources of information, made a close ex- 
amination of one of these farms, and describes it as in a 
good state of cultivation, and as having exercised a marked 
influence upon the adjoining country. He found the farm 
house " comfortable and scrupulously clean" — there were 
books indoors and flowers without, and all the furniture of 
the house, as well as the farming tools and machinery, had 
been made by those who occupied the farms. 



244 THE EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS OF RUSSIA. 

A second government school of this description, on a 
very extensive scale, is now in a flourishing condition at 
Lipezk, in south Russia, and, in addition to this, a horti- 
cultural school has also been established by the emperor, 
and placed in charge of some German teachers. Separate 
from these schools for special purposes, is a school system 
for the empire, yet in its youth, but which promises great 
results for the future, and is indeed already exerting a 
transforming power upon the character of the nation. 

The whole of Russia is divided into university districts, 
with a district university in each with subordinate schools 
attached, and at the head of them all is the National Uni- 
verity at Moscow. All the schools of each district are 
under the charge of the district university. It is a com- 
pletely organized national system, which when fully carried 
out, will make the means of education universal in Russia. 

The following statements, condensed by the London 
Quarterly from the " Notes" of Baron Haxthausen, will be 
found interesting, as affording accurate information con- 
cerning the schools, and some of the institutions of Mos- 
cow, and throwing light upon the spirit and aims of the 
government : 

"Few capitals can boast so many educational institutiona 
as now exist at Moscow under the crown patronage. Be- 
ginning with the University, the Baron speaks of the upper 
professors as fully acquainted with all that has been written 
in other countries on their respective subjects, nor is he less 
pleased with the state of the numerous schools subordinate 
to this University. Other schools are, those of commerce 
(partly supported by the Merchants of Moscow), of drawing, 
for soldiers' orphans, and for cadets ; but the greatest of all 
seems to be the Imperial House of Education, founded by 
Catharine II. It has at least twenty-six thousand children 
belonging to it, either within its walls or put out to nurse 
in the country — all of them orphans of officers, or found- 
lings. Of the children in the house, the boys are brought 
up to be schoolmasters or to be sent to the University; 



TIIE EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS OP RUSSIA. 245 

the girls to be governesses — learning German, French, 
drawing, dancing, history, geometry, and music, besides 
sewing, knitting, etc. Places are found for them, by-aud- 
bye, but not in either of the capitals, which are thought 
unsafe for " unprotected females." They are watched for 
six years, and if marriage comes in their way proper in- 
quiries are made about the swain. Attached to the insti- 
tution is a school of Arts, the pupils of which are thor- 
oughly trained in the practice of some one of the different 
trades that figure on the list, and which are in number 
seventeen" 

Among the educational institutions of Russia, the public 
libraries of St. Petersburgh should not be omitted. The 
Imperial Library is one of the largest in the world. It 
contains four hundred thousand volumes, and fifteen thou- 
sand manuscripts. It is open daily for the use of the public. 
It is a curious fact that some of the most valuable of the 
state documents of France are now found in the Russian 
Imperial Library. During the French revolution, these 
treasures of the French government were seized by the 
populace and sold to the highest bidder, who proved to be 
a Russian, and by whom they were forwarded to St. Peters- 
burgh. There has been gathered here — partly by purchase, 
partly by presents, and also by the spoils of war — one of 
the very best collections of oriental works to be found in 
the world. The library of the Academy of Science con- 
tains one hundred thousand volumes, and that of the Her- 
mitage has One hundred and twenty thousand. 

The present condition of Russian literature, and the ac- 
tivity of the public mind, may be shown from the fact that 
in the ten years next preceding 1843, seven millions of vol- 
umes of Russian books were printed, and nearly five mil- 
lions of volumes of foreign works were imported. In a 
single year of this period, eight hundred and eighty works 
were printed and published within the Russian empire, and 
only seventy of these were translations from foreign tongues. 
The whole subject of education is committed to one of the 



246 THE EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS OF RUSSIA. 

great departments of state, at the head of which is the 
Minister of Public Instruction. 

This is necessarily an imperfect sketch of the educational 
institutions, in which many details are necessarily omitted, 
but enough has been exhibited to enable the reader to judge 
of the justice of the epithet "barbarian," so constantly 
applied to the empire of the Czars. No one will fail to 
perceive that these are only different parts of one grand 
and harmonious system. There is an admirable compact- 
ness and unity in the whole design, and two main ideas 
have evidently both originated and shaped the whole — first, 
as most important, the defense of the empire, and, secondly, 
the development of the national resources and the encour- 
agement of domestic manufactures. In regard to the first 
of these many an invective has been hurled at Russia, be- 
cause, as is charged, she consumes her strength in the 
equipment and support of an immense military force where- 
with to threaten or overrun all western Europe; whereas 
instead, as is maintained, she should have devoted herself 
to the arts of peace and of internal growth. But a candid 
observer of the condition and progress of Europe from the 
time of the French revolution, will perhaps be inclined to 
admit that Russia has neither gone too fast nor too far in 
her military preparations, and that her policy has not only 
been a prudent but a necessary one. The invasion of 1812 
was an admonition not soon to be forgotten, aud Nicholas 
was too keen and too intelligent an observer of passing 
events not to foresee that a second attack on his nation 
was certain to be made, sooner or later, either by the infidel 
democracy of Europe, or if the republican movement should 
fail, then from the western Powers, directed by the Roman 
Catholic Church. 

The control of the Black Sea is essential to the growth 
and even safety of Russia, and no Russian statesman has 
been ignorant how restive both England and France have 
been at the predominance of the power of the Emperor 
there. Under these circumstance Russia certainly showed 
a true sagacity in holding herself prepared, and the event 



THE EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS OF RUSSIA. 247 

justified the wisdom of her policy. What would have 
been the fate of the nation now, unless western Europe had 
found her with her harness on awaiting their approach.? 

Russia can not preserve her nationality, her existence, 
far less execute the mission which she believes has been 
entrusted to her, unless she maintains a military force cap- 
able of resisting the combined power of western Europe, or 
at the very least, as the event has shown, the united strength 
of England and France. She maintains her immense force 
to secure herself from successful attack, not for foreign 
conquest. Instead of sacrificing internal development to 
the support of an army and navy, she maintains them in 
order that within their circling lines and guns the works 
of peace may make secure progress in the heart of the 
empire. France and England have intruded themselves 
where they have no right to interfere with the growth of 
Russia, which has been more legitimate, more reputable, 
and marked with less injustice to the weak, than the pro- 
gress of either of her adversaries. As has been well ob- 
served by an English writer, France made more aggressions 
upon neighboring nations in the space of ten years than 
Russia has done in as many centuries ; and when England 
complains of Russia let her think of her East Indian ex- 
ploits. These things do not lessen the guilt of Russian 
aggressions, but they ought to silence these her special and 
busy accusers, who arraign her at the tribunal of public 
opinion, as if they alone were innocent of ambition, or 
oppression, or robbery. 

After the safety of the nation has been cared for, the 
government turns its next care to internal national develop- 
ment ; and certainly no nation in the world can boast of a 
more enlightened, thorough, or scientific system of instruc- 
tion than Russia herself has established. The great sources 
of her national strength, and from which she derives her 
vitality, are agriculture, her mines, and her manufactures. 
Constructing as a basis of educational operations a complete 
national sytem, which is extending itself regularly with the 
progress of the country, she has then provided schools of 



248 THE EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS OF RUSSIA. 

the most magnificent character, to give the minds of the 
Russian youth that special direction which is demanded by 
the character and policy of the country ; and from these 
schools, as centers, an influence is diffused through the 
whole nation by which the resources of the empire are 
sought out and developed by a combination of science with 
mechanical skill. 

It is doubtful whether any other nation of the world has 
studied its own resources more carefully, or instituted a 
more effectual method for making them available. A 
nation capable of such designs, and of executing them on a 
scale of such grandeur, deserves not the name barbarian 



THE CHARACTER OF THE RUSSIAN INTELLECT 249 



CHAPTER XXIV. 



THE CHARACTER OF THE RUSSIAN INTELLECT. 

Having made a partial exhibition of the elements of 
greatness which belong to the Russian Empire, it may be 
well to pause before the introduction of additional statements 
on these points, and bestow some attention upon the mental 
characteristics of the race in whose hands these resources 
and advantages have been placed in the providence of God. 
This, perhaps, will enable us to determine the probable 
character of Russian civilization, and its future influence 
upon the destiny of Europe and America. Two interesting 
questions here present themselves. Will Russia assume a 
form of civilization, individual and national — a Russian or 
Sclavonic civilization — and if so, what will be its distinctive 
characteristics? It is a common remark of French and 
English writers, that Russia produces nothing original, that 
she is destitute of the creative power of genius, and pos- 
sesses only the imitative character of some of the oriental 
nations, and is therefore doomed like them to the inferior 
life of a mere copyist of western Europe. She is repre- 
sented as wearing the garments of civilization after the 
manner of a savage; a European exterior, which can not 
conceal the barbarian. No intelligent opinion can be formed 



250 THE CHARACTER OF THE RUSSIAN INTELLECT. 

of the future of this great empire, until we decide whether 
such representations are true or false. In the very begin- 
ning of such an investigation it should be remembered that 
even the highest forms of genius must operate with mate- 
rials already in existence, that strictly speaking it creates 
nothing, and that its most signal triumphs are won by pre- 
senting familiar things in a new light, and throwing them 
into original combinations. 

Every modern nation to a great extent is necessarily an 
imitator. Our age is the heir of the past, and has come 
into possession of the treasures of thought and art accumu- 
lated by preceding generations, and the only question which 
remains is, whether from this stock of material, common 
to all Christendom now, a nation can rear a social, political, 
and religious structure, which shall exhibit a distinctive 
and individual character? The nations of the modern 
world are all the inheritors of the mingled Greek and Ro- 
man civilization, and these forms of national life have been 
developed, in western Europe, from the materials thus sup- 
plied — the Latin, the German, and the Anglo-Saxon. These, 
however, are being now mingled, and the original individu- 
ality by which they were distinguished is disappearing, and 
a constantly increasing intercourse is sweeping away the 
peculiarities of each. It would appear impossible, under 
present circumstances, for any one of the nations of western 
Europe to work out hereafter a separate and individual 
destiny, or to pursue a strictly national policy. Each is 
molding each, and society must become the resultant of 
conflicting forces. Europe can neither be English, nor 
French, nor German, nor can either nation retain the 
sharp distinctness of its own original outline. 

It remains to be seen what excellencies these mingled 
elements may exhibit as they combine. Still Germany, 
France, and England, stamping their own characteristics 
upon the materials furnished by the ancient world, have 
each produced a national form of civilization, a form which 
France shares with the other branches of the Latin family. 
In the same manner the Roman forms received the impress 



THE CHARACTER OF THE RUSSIAN INTELLECT. 251 

of the Grecian mind, and thus Greece herself softened and 
adorned the stately gigantic grandeur of Egypt. Nor will 
it he easy to discover any nation this side the deluge that 
has originated, strictly speaking, its modes of thought and 
expression, and its form of national life. Wherever we 
search we find something still due to the past ; a former age 
has hequeathed its legacy of wisdom and experience. 

If, then, Russia is ahle to avail herself of the materials 
which the age affords her, and can construct from them a 
national edifice which shall hear the impress of a distinct 
national character, the world must then admit that she pos- 
sesses an originating power, and can produce a Russian 
civilization which, in the end perhaps, will assume the more 
definite, as well as more comprehensive name, Sclayonian. 
This she may do, although the style of her architecture and 
dress, her manufactures, tools, weapons, etc., have the Euro- 
pean form. America presents an example of what is here 
intended. Through forms which, with the exception of 
the political structure, are essentially European, there ap- 
pears an individual, an American life, which, with each 
succeeding year, will become more distinct and dominant, 
till the ultimate result is reached, not an Anglo-Saxon, but 
an American civilization, separate and peculiar. 

The people of the United States are continually reminded 
that they are mere blind imitators of what others perform, 
that they have no literature, or art, or science, of their own, 
or independent national life or character. Doubtless this 
is to a great extent true, or rather it has been true. Still 
it should have been remembered, that nothing less than a 
miracle on the most extended scale could have enabled an 
English colony, with the task of subduing a continent on 
their hands, to present at once all the phenomena of an 
independent national existence. The question should rather 
have been, whether a germ had been planted here, which, 
in its maturity should have not only a territory but a name, 
a character, a history of its own. 

Such considerations should not be lost sight of in form- 
ing an estimate of the present condition and prospects of 



252 THE CHARACTER OP THE RUSSIAN INTELLECT. 

Russia. For although, if we adopt the mere reckoning of 
years, Russia may be considered old, yet her true national 
career dates back not more than a hundred years; and in- 
deed it was not until the reign of Catharine II., that she 
first appeared as a great nation upon the theater of Europe. 
At the time of the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth the 
population of the Empire was about twelve millions, at the 
death of Peter the Great, in 1725, about twenty millions, 
and at the ascension of Catharine II., in 1763, about twenty- 
five millions. One hundred years, then, is quite as long a 
time as can reasonably be assigned as the true national life 
of the Muscovite nation, forthe impulse given to the nation's 
growth by Peter the Great was subsequently lost in a great 
degree, and the attempt to improve the country was made 
in a new direction. It is then quite too soon to charge 
Russia with a want of original power ; the capabilities of 
the Sclavonic race are yet but in the germ. 

In studying the future of this nation, we should regard 
not so much the Russia which now is, as that which is so 
rapidly forming itself from the mass of accumulated mate- 
rial. Travelers have deceived themselves and misled others 
by dwelling upon and magnifying the fact of the existence 
of many races within the limits of the empire, describing it 
as a mere aggregation which must soon fall asunder. They 
forget that there has been a rapid acquisition of territory and 
population, and that sufficient time has not yet elapsed to 
secure a complete consolidation of the mass. But had they 
looked a little beyond the external aspect of things, and 
studied with some care the actual movement of the forces 
which shape the course of the nation, they would have dis- 
covered a central life power which, with an almost unex- 
ampled energy, is diffusing itself through the whole national 
mass, assimilating or displacing whatever it touches, and 
aided in its operations by the settled policy of the govern- 
ment. They would have discovered one dominant race, 
compacted by every tie that can bind a people together, 
inspired by common hopes and a common ambition, wield- 
ing a power before which all else disappears, either by 



THE CHARACTER OF THE RUSSIAN INTELLECT. 253 

incorporation or removal, and which, unless arrested by the 
providence of God, will inevitably fill the vast territory of 
Russia with one single family, with one language, one 
literature, one government, and one religion. 

Of the mental characteristics of this race, then, we should 
gain, if possible, a distinct idea, in order to estimate the 
f u t ur e— because the future will be the work of their hands. 
There are three methods of estimating the mental charac- 
teristics of a people. They may be studied, as exhibited in 
individuals, or in those public manifestations which are the 
expressions of national thought, or in the characters of 
those great men who sometimes stand forth as the expon- 
ents of their age, an individual expression of the character- 
istics of a nation. The true Russian possesses in an emi- 
nent degree energy, activity, and fertility of resource. He 
is found in every part of the empire, as a merchant, a me- 
chanic, a pedlar, a speculator, and in all society his is the 
ruling spirit ; he is the shrewd, successful man, to whom 
others give place — removed from his path by superior skill, 
or force, or fraud, as circumstances seem to demand. So- 
ciety receives from him its impulse— new schemes are 
hatched in his brain— he drives the sharpest bargain— and, 
like other sharp men, he overreaches and deceives. Some 
travelers speak of him in terms that might have been bor- 
rowed from the descriptions given by southern men of the 
pedlars and clock-sellers from New England. The Russian 
universally thinks or says he can. His disposition is to sur- 
mount obstacles, or sweep them from his path. He endures 
the toil, and labors hopefully on. 

De Custine, who was filled with true French disgust every 
moment while in Russia, who saw almost nothing that he 
could approve, has, nevertheless, recorded this national 
characteristic as a noble trait. He says, "One of the most 
" attractive traits in their character, at least in my opinion, 
"is their dislike to objections; they refuse to recognise 
« either difficulties or obstacles. With his hatchet in his 
"hand, which he never lays aside, a Russian peasant 
" triumphs over accidents and predicaments which would 



254 THE CHARACTER OF THE RUSSIAN INTELLECT. 

" altogether stop the villagers of our own provinces, and he 
" answers ' yes' to everything that is demanded of him." 
In such a character there are at least the elements of power, 
and a capacity for progress. The native force of the mind 
may, in the uncultivated and unregenerate man, break forth 
in acts of unkindness and cruelty, but this same strength, 
if properly directed, might also be employed in creating a 
national power that would bless the world. 

His versatility of talent and power of imitation render 
the Russian a most successful scholar, and he makes rapid 
progress in whatever he undertakes. The raw recruit is 
transformed, in an incredibly short period, into one per- 
forming correctly the evolutions of the regular soldier, and 
assumes with great facility the air of the camp. He is 
capable of being metamorphosed as suddenly into a trades- 
man, a mechanic, or a pedlar. He is crafty, and to a 
remarkable degree insinuating in his address, and without 
being distinguished for muscular strength, is capable of 
great endurance. 

The Russian can scarcely be considered as possessing the 
military spirit in the ordinary acceptance of that phrase. 
His nature does not prompt him to arm himself and sally 
forth in quest of adventure and conquest. lie is neither a 
sea king, to rove the seas for booty, nor a knight errant, 
fighting for renown and the mere love of battle. He plans 
no revolutionary uprisings for the rights of universal 
humanity. He is more inclined to the peaceful arts of 
agriculture, manufactures and trade, wherein his skill and 
cunning can be exercised, and where success is obtained by 
superior activity and address rather than by blows. As a 
fighter he is distinguished more by resistance than aggres- 
sion. His enemy shouts as victor in the first onset, but is 
generally exhausted by victory, and in the end destroyed. 
He conquers not in the assault, but in his defense. 

The Russian army, therefore, has heretofore been far 
more formidable at home than abroad. For although the 
Russian prefers peace to battle, he defends his property and 
his country to the last extremity. ]No candid man will fail 



THE CHARACTER OF THE RUSSIAN INTELLECT. 255 

to perceive that a race possessing the qualifications which 
observers attribute to the true Russian, is capable of a 
higher form of civilization than the nation yet has reached. 
Fifty millions of people, with these characteristics, can not 
fail to make an impression upon the world. And, although 
the highest forms of genius have not j 7 et been manifested, 
there are germs of intellectual power, whose future expan- 
sion may surpass the present expectations of the world. 
Russia needs the development which auother century will 
give her, before her capabilities can be correctly estimated. 
The progress of the nation for the last hundred years cor- 
responds, in a remarkable degree, to the course of the indi- 
vidual Russian. What he is to individuals of other races, 
Russia has been, and is, to the nations on her frontier. She 
has made an aggressive progress, and without direct wars 
of conquest, has continued to absorb one portion of territory 
after auother, till she has swallowed up the contiguous 
countries, or important portions of their domain. 

Another method of determining the mental qualities of 
a people is by observing the public manifestations of thought, 
in which the general mind of a people will embody itself, 
such as their public works and institutions, their national 
policy, the national structure which becomes the exponent 
of the popular thought. Such productions are often as- 
cribed to the genius of the individual mind, and a nation ia 
often regarded as the creation of its great men, molded by 
them as clay in the hands of the potter. But this idea 
should be received with important qualifications. The man 
of genius, in whatever department he moves, is in a great 
degree the exponent of national thought, which through 
him obtains expression, and he becomes a national favorite 
because each one beholds at least a partial revelation of 
himself. When a great poet arises, it is as if the hitherto 
dumb nation had found its speech. Similar thoughts had 
long been floating chaotically through the popular mind — 
thousands of hearts had been stirred with similar feelings, 
and at last all are delighted to find them so well expressed. 
The national soul has found its interpreter. Even when 



256 THE CHARACTER OF THE RUSSIAN INTELLECT. 

the poet, like Shakspeare, addresses himself to universal 
humanity, his work still bears the individual impress of his 
nation. Shakspeare is the poet of the race, but his poem 
is English still. There was a basis in the English mind for 
such a production as his. Burns gave an articulate expres- 
sion to the thoughts and feelings of the Scottish peasantry, 
and wherever we direct inquiry an individual national mind 
is found, which, by the aid of genius, finds expression in 
national works and institutions. 

The wondrous creations which made glorious the valley 
of the Nile, are not to be regarded as simply the concep- 
tions of individual artists, but as expressions of national 
thought. The grandeur has clothed itself in Egyptian 
forms, the enormous structures enshrining the vastness and 
elegance of Egyptian thought. They exhibited the indi- 
viduality of the national mind. So also the poets, the ora- 
tors, the statesmen, the philosophers, the artists of Greece, 
were all formed after a Grecian intellectual model ; there 
was a national Grecian soul that molded the genius of the 
individual. If we study a nation as a whole, in all its pro- 
ductions, in all its actions, in the character and direction 
of its public efforts, we behold in them all combined but the 
legitimate out-growth of the national mind, the outward 
forms in which the thought of the nation has expressed 
itself — even as a plant unfolds itself from its germs. 

Russia, when judged by this standard, will neither ap- 
pear like a mere barbarian nor as only the servile imitator 
of the rest of Europe. In the national structure which she 
is erecting there are already individual features, and a 
largeness of conception, that give promise of a future great- 
ness which shall be known as her own, bearing the impress 
of the Russian mind. Her territorial idea, which she is so 
rapidly working out, is the grandest conception of the kind 
of modern times — perhaps of any age. Bonaparte himself, 
unless in some of his day-dreams of an eastern empire, 
with its capital at Alexandria or Constantinople, never 
conceived of such a kingdom as that whose image fills the 
national mind of Russia as a definite object of pursuit, and 



THE CHARACTER OF THE RUSSIAN INTELLECT. 257 

toward which she has thus far made a steady advance. 
There is much more of folly than of wisdom in sneering at 
a nation which proposes for itself an empire that rests one 
broad wing on the Atlantic, and the other on the Pacific, 
with one capital controlling the Baltic and the adjacent 
eeas, and the other on the Dardanelles — and which has so 
nearly converted her original conception, vast as it is, into 
a historic reality. There is grandeur even in the thought 
of such a dominion, and we may well marvel how it could 
have originated with a people that was hemmed in on every 
side by surrounding nations more powerful than themselves, 
without a ship, or even a sea-port ; but when we behold 
that secluded race expanding itself on every side, swelling 
out to the proportions of its great idea, devising the means 
by which it has wrought successfully on toward its ultimate 
purpose, until it seems now to have nearly reached its goal, 
in spite of the opposition of Europe, it is far wiser to study 
such a fact than to turn away with a scoff at the "bar- 
barians." 

It is simply absurd to deny that the successful working 
out of such an idea is a task which can be executed only 
by a people capable of greatness. The morality of Russian 
progress is no more to be admired or defended than are 
the national acts of the other Powers of Europe, or even 
the method of our own growth, but viewed as a creation 
of human intellect, and, throwing out of sight the means 
employed, Russia, as she is, may well challenge the respect 
of the world. The morality of her national acts will 
scarcely suffer in comparison with that of her civilized 
neighbors. The treachery, fraud, oppression and cruelty 
of others do not, of course, justify her own similar acts, but 
England, France, and even America, might well shed some 
penitential tears over portions of their own territory before 
they sit in judgment upon Russia. 

Again, the conception of her plan of national defense, 
and her execution of the work, is an exhibition of the 
character of the Russian mind. She has not only created 
a powerful navy, but she has constructed for this navy places 

17 



258 THE CHARACTER OP THE RUSSIAN INTELLECT. 

of security, where the two great maritime Powers of the 
world have not as yet, in two campaigns, been able to touch 
an important prize. She holds still her naval treasures 
safe for her future need. Her great fortifications have been 
built on a scale of grandeur, and have been equipped with 
a science which baffles as yet the military skill of Europe, 
and these, too, are exponents of the national mind, and are 
proofs of its capacity. The same vastness of idea charac- 
terizes the whole military establishment of the country, and 
is also stamped upon the schools, and indeed upon every 
department of the government. There is not seen as yet, 
perhaps, a perfect adaptation of part to part in the great 
machine, but there is a largeness of idea that gives promise 
of a most imposing future. 

The idea so often insisted upon, that all this is the work 
of foreigners, is as puerile as that with which England 
pleased herself so long, that our naval victories were won 
by the valor of English sailors on board our ships. Russia 
is doubtless largety indebted to foreign science and skill, 
and so also is America. But this foreign aid has only 
served, in both countries, to assist the growth of the native 
mind, and the foreign effort has been shaped by the national 
model. With all the assistance which has been rendered, 
Russia is not a foreign nation, and America is American 
still. The diplomacy of a nation also affords a criterion 
whereby to judge of national capabilities. Russian intel- 
lect has long been tested in the councils of Europe in its 
encounter with the most cultivated and distinguished men 
of the surrounding nations, and no one has yet pretended 
that the diplomatic agents of the Czar have been deficient 
in talent or skill, or that they have been wanting in success. 

On the contrary, Russia has enlarged and enriched her- 
self more b} T her skill in negotiation than by the conquests 
of her armies. She is, it is true, largely accused of dupli- 
city, and even fraud and bribery, but until the hands of 
other Powers have been somewhat cleansed, such charges 
may be regarded, perhaps, as an expression of those who 
have been losers in a game where all parties alike were 



THE CHARACTER OF THE RUSSIAN INTELLECT. 259 

endeavoring to play with marked cards and loaded dice. 
Had Russia possessed no capacity but such as manifests 
itself in treachery and cunning, a lofty and unspotted in- 
tegrity on the part of the other Powers might have baffled 
her long ago ; but there is much reason for believing that 
the Czar and his ministers have merely foiled the neigh- 
boring cabinets in the use of their own weapons. Russian 
diplomacy, it must be confessed, is not distinguished for 
frankness and integrity, but it certainly evinces great saga- 
city and consummate skill, while it is not easy to show 
that in her political morality she has fallen below the stand- 
ard of her cotemporaries. The vast conception of an empire 
which she holds steadily before her mind, and which by 
gigantic effort she has well-nigh realized, her immense mili- 
tary system, with the resources she has accumulated, the 
science and skill evinced in her admirable schools and other 
governmental institutions, the style of her one modern city, 
and the success of her diplomacy, are all so many witnesses 
that indicate the power and the characteristics of Russian 
mind. 

The Russian empire, as it now is, huge, imposing, im- 
pregnable as it seems as yet to be, is the production of 
Russian thought, as truly as was the Egyptian or Grecian 
civilization the proper out- growth of the national mind. 
The national idea is one of grand proportions ; it has taken 
full possession of the public thought, and it lies clearly de- 
fined even before the mind of the Russian peasant. It has 
shaped itself into a settled public policy, and this policy is 
the expression of the desires, and hopes, and determinations 
of the great Russian family. Russia gravitates by a law 
of her national life toward Constantinople; her never- 
ceasing endeavor is to realize the national conception of the 
empire, and in all her operations she has exhibited a capa- 
city for enlarged thought, a power of extensive combina- 
tion, and a skillful adaptation of means to ends, not second 
to any Power in Europe. If she is still to be considered 
only as a barbarian nation, then, in some important branches, 
civilization may well become the pupil of barbarism. 



260 THE CHARACTER OF THE RUSSIAN INTELLECT. 

Another method of determining ths characteristics of a 
race, and of measuring its capabilities, is by studying its 
great men. A truly great man is the exponent of his age 
and nation. He combines in himself the chief qualities of 
his race. In the youth of a nation a great man is in him- 
self a prediction and guaranty of national greatness ; in its 
manhood he represents his country as she is ; in its decay 
he is but a proud memorial of the past. Thus Hildebrand 
was the true prophet of the Roman Catholic Church. He 
first conceived and clearly defined the great idea which has 
since been the center of its life, and shape, and growth. 
Charlemagne was the individual expression of his age. 
Alexander was the true exponent of the Macedonian thought. 
Louis XIV. was the embodied France of that age, and 
Chatham exhibited England in her proudest hour; and the 
men of the American Revolution were predictions of the 
American future. In the same manner Nicholas may be 
regarded as the true exponent of Russia as she is, and the 
earnest of what she will become. He was not only thor- 
oughly Russian in feeling and aims, but he so combined 
in himself the chief qualities of Russian character as to be 
a true representative of his nation, and Russia may be pro- 
perly studied in him. He was more thoroughly Russian 
than any other man in the empire, though his family was 
in part of German origin. 

But the future of Russia will be shaped not alone by 
Russians, but by the combined power of the great Sclavonic 
race, organized around a common center, and working out 
the problem of a common national life. 



TERRITORIAL PROGRESS OF RUSSIA. 261 



CHAPTER XXV. 



TERRITORIAL PROGRESS OF RUSSIA. 



In connection with these observations upon the charac- 
teristics of Russian mind, it is interesting to consider the 
actual progress of the Empire, and observe whether it cor- 
responds to these supposed capabilities of the race, and in 
what direction the national effort has been made. It will 
be seen that the policy of the nation has been steadily 
shaped toward certain definite aims, tnat have not been lost 
sight of at least for a hundred years, while Nicholas has 
been the first to conceive a truly national scheme fittted to 
accomplish the national purpose. This purpose embraced 
several distinct points, viz: general territorial enlargement, 
the control of the Baltic and the adjacent seas, the control of 
the Black Sea and the Dardanelles, an outlet for her Sibe- 
rian possessions on the Pacific, and a station there for a 
great eastern naval depot for a Pacific fleet and the East 
Indian commerce. In 1452, at the time of the fall of the 
Greek Empire, the territory of Russia was estimated at a 
little more than two hundred thousand square miles, not 
quite equal to four States the size of Illinois, and its popu- 
lation was only about six millions. It had not a single 



262 TERRITORIAL PROGRESS OF RUSSIA. 

seaport, nor any independent method of communication 
with the commerce of the world. At the accession of Peter 
the Great, in 1689, the territory had been increased to 
nearly four millions of square miles, while the population 
was still but fifteen millions. At the present time her ter- 
ritory is considered to be equal to about seven millions 
square miles, and her population is variously estimated from 
seventy millions to eighty millions. The following accouut 
of the steps of Russian progress is taken from Alison's 
History of Europe : 

1721.— The battle of Pultowa and the treaty of Neustadt 
gave the Russians the province of Livonia, and the 
site where Cronstadt and St. Petersburgh now stand. 

1772. — The frontier of the Empire, on the side of Poland, 
was brought down to the Dwina and the Dnieper. 

1774. — By the treaty of Kainardji, the Muscovite standard 
was brought down to the Crimea and the Sea of AzofF. 
At about the same time acquisitions from Tartary were 
made, larger than the whole German Empire. 

1783. — The Russian sway was extended over the Crimea, 
and the vast plains which stretch between the Euxine 
and the Caspian, as far as the foot of the Caucasus. 

1792. — The treaty of Jassy advanced the frontier to the 
Dniester, and Odessa was brought beneath their rule. 

1793. — In this year they obtained command of Lithuania. 

1794. — The Russians extended their frontier to the Vistula, 
and nearly half of the old kingdom of Poland was 
obtained. The peace of Tilsit rounded their eastern 
frontier by a considerable province. 

1809. — Russia attained the whole of Finland, as far as the 
Gulf of Bothnia. 

1812. — Her southern frontier was extended to the Pruth, 
and she gained partial possession of the mouths of the 
Danube. 



TERRITORIAL PROGRESS OF RUSSIA. 2G3 

1800 to 1814. — Many conquests were made from the Per- 
sians and Circassians, and Georgia obtained. 

1815. — The Grand Duchy of Warsaw was added to the 
Empire. 

1828. — The Araxes became the southern frontier of their 
Asiatic territories. 

1834. — The Dardanelles were closed to armed vessels, and 
the Black Sea was open only to her ships of war; 
and whether France and England will succeed in 
holding open the gates of the Euxine, or whether they 
will be closed forever agaiust them, remains yet to be 
seen. 

Since the above dates, additional territory has been 
obtained in Poland; a province has been gained from 
China, on the Pacific, which gives Russia the command 
of the river Amoor, navigable in the direction of south- 
eastern Siberia, for more than two thousand miles, and af- 
fording a most important naval station at its mouth. 

Such has been the actual progress of Russia, and such 
is her present position. With her position, resources, and 
means of defense sufficient to arrest the combined power 
of France and England at one of her outposts, it is diffi- 
cult to understand how a reasonable man can entertain 
the idea that Russia can now be persuaded or compelled 
to abandon the settled policy which is interwoven with 
the thoughts and desires of the whole nation, surrender 
those advantages which it has cost the labor of a cen- 
tury, and an immense expenditure of life and treasure 
to obtain, and give up the very purposes for which the 
Russian government exists. 

Russia has too strong a faith in her national mission, 
to be easily checked in her career, or to be turned per- 
manently aside from the line of her nation's march. The 
demands which the Allies made upon her, required a com- 
plete revolution in her national policy, the surrender of 
her settled scheme of Empire. They asked, indeed, that 



264 TERRITORIAL PROGRESS OF RUSSIA. 

modern Russia should cease to exist, and that the Empire 
should be rolled back a hundred years in policy and posi- 
tion, and should return to its former state of seclusion. 
France and England virtually demanded that Russia 
should retire from the field of Europe, and yield the con- 
trol of the world to them; and it may be safely predicted, 
that the Muscovite will never do this while he has people 
and arms. 



RUSSIA AIMS AT A CIVILIZATION 265 



CHAPTER XXVI, 



RUSSIA AIMS AT A CIVILIZATION DISTINCT FROM THAT OF WESTERN 

EUROPE. 



The popular opinion concerning Russia may, perhaps, be 
expressed in a single sentence — her government is a hor- 
rible despotism, and she is the determined foe of liberty, 
the chief barrier to European progress. This assumption 
underlies all the attempts which have been made, both in 
Europe and America, to arouse against her the indignation 
of the world. Another outcry was popular on both sides of 
the Atlantic, that the ferocious Northern Bear was about 
to seize and devour the Lamb of Turkey, and an armed 
world was bound to rush to the rescue. If this were disin- 
terested benevolence, if those who raised the cry were not 
so anxious to be the guardians of the lamb for the sake of 
the fleece, or to appropriate it entirely to their own use, it 
would.be entitled to more respect. But if the lion wars 
against the bear merely because he desires the prey himself, 
it is not needful, on this account, that American sympathies 
should be strongly excited. Another English charge against 
Russia is made more particularly for home consumption. 
It is that Russia will not consent to adopt the free trade 
system, and render herself, on that account, a huge depend- 
ency of England, but insists on protecting her own industry, 
and applies herself to the steady development of her own 



266 DISTINCT FROM THAT OF WESTERN EUROPE. 

resources. Russia thus threatens to become the competitor 
of England in the markets of the world, and so England 
sends forth her fleets and armies in the name of progress 
and liberty to cripple and arrest her too rapid growth. 

The charge that Russia is a cold-hearted despotism, and 
that she is the chief opponent of European civilization, 
should be studied in the light of some facts which seem to 
have received little attention from many of those who are 
striving to stir up the human race against her. She is 
shaping a civilization of her own, distinct from that of 
western Europe, based on a separate idea, and intended for 
a separate race, and in connection with a distinct form of 
religion. The value of. this, her national conception, can 
only be estimated by studying carefully the genius of her 
own people, and also the condition of the rest of Europe, 
and the character of the influences by which the western 
nations are controlled. The system of Russia is intended 
for a separate and peculiar race ; her national idea is not 
only Sclavonic in its origin, but it is Sclavonic also in its 
design. It is a home system, a family institution on a 
great scale, which she wishes to conduct upon a model of 
her own ; and before she is utterly condemned, it would be 
well to take a calm survey of the actual state of affairs of 
Europe. Three distinct forms of civilization are at this 
moment struggling for pre-eminence on the field of western 
Europe — the Papal, which allies itself to civil despotism ; 
the infidel democratic ; and the Protestant, which connects 
itself with the idea of constitutional liberty. These three 
systems are cmite distinct from each other in theory, and 
are separate as actual movements, though the friends of 
each are not yet drawn into separate communities. 

It is necessary to study the character of each of these 
forces, now contending for the mastery in western Europe, 
before we can be prepared to form an accurate opinion of 
the policy of Russia. The central idea of the Papacy, upon 
which the whole system is based, is this : the Roman Cath- 
olic Church is the one only true church of the world — that 
out of her pale there neither is nor can be salvation — that 



RUSSIA AIMS AT A CIVILIZATION 267 

to her, as the one true church, belongs the supreme powei 
of the world, vested in her head, the Pope — and that he, 
reigning in the stead, and by the authority of Jesus Christ 
himself, is the rightful king of kings, and that he, at his 
pleasure, may plant or subvert all civil power, as subserv- 
ient to the proper authority of the church ; and that it is 
his duty to overthrow every government which rejects the 
Roman Catholic communion, because it is heretical. In- 
fallible in doctrine, she claims it to be her duty to prescribe 
a faith for all men, and she considers the mission of the 
Romish Church to be to stretch its scepter over all the 
earth, to embrace all the kingdoms of the world in one 
universal monarchy, of which she, by the appointment of 
God himself, is the rightful head. This may be called the 
" Bill of Rights" of the Catholic Church, the Magna Charta 
which she has granted to the nations — the right to be 
governed in all things, temporal and spiritual, by the Pope, 
the heaven-appointed head of the one true church. 

A right granted to all kings to receive their crowns at 
his hands, and from all men in authority to derive their 
authority from him, and the right to be punished as here- 
tics if they assert the right of private judgment or of inde- 
pendent government. This is the one unchangeable idea 
of the Papacy — the essential nucleus of her system, the 
center of its life — to reign supreme over all the world, as 
the true representative of Jesus Christ, ruling in his stead, 
and wielding his authority as lord of lords and king of 
kings. This idea, from the time it was first proclaimed by 
Hildebrand, has never been abandoned, never lost sight of 
in her darkest hours, never despaired of amid her sorest 
defeats. This scheme, which seems worthy both of the in- 
tellect and pride of the lost archangel himself, is pressed at 
this time, with fresh activity and zeal, upon the attention 
of the world ; and it presents a very grave subject of thought 
that, in this nineteenth century, when, according to the 
boast of some, the world has passed so far beyond the 
reach of every form of superstition, the renewal of the 
most absurd pretension of the Catholic Church, instead of 



268 DISTINCT FROM THAT OF WESTERN EUROPE. 

repelling all men from her, is adding to her popularity and 
strength. It has not been without a profound knowledge 
of human character, that the leaders of the Papacy have 
put forth the new dogma of the Immaculate Conception. 
It is not the offspring of a mere puerile conceit, but of a 
clear-seeing sagacity, which, knowing the weakness of men, 
uses it for its own purposes, and which understands per- 
fectly that no mere intellectual progress, no influence of 
what we call modern improvement can, of themselves, save 
men from the grossest superstition, or secure them against 
the vilest imposture of a religious character. 

So far as mere worldly policy is concerned, the Roman 
Catholic Church is wise in assuming the loftiest, ground of 
Hildebrand, and the Innocents. The very loftiness of her 
demands, bordering even upon absurdity, will secure the 
respect and belief of thousands. The same world that 
scoffs at moderate pretensions is inclined to worship the 
man that resolutely persists in declaring himself a god. In 
reviving, therefore, the most preposterous demand of their 
church in the middle ages, and in adding thereto the new 
dogma of the Immaculate Conception, the leaders of the 
Papacy are really playing a safer game with the credulity 
of the world than if they had moderated their pretensions. 
The Romish Church, as a mere religious denomination, 
one church among many, is simply a contemptible juggler, 
that could not command the respect of the lowest; but 
that same church, expanded to the gigantic proportions of 
the rightful ruler of the world, walking in queenly robes, 
and wearing the triple crown, demanding homage and obe- 
dience as the vicegerent of the Lord Jesus, will excite won- 
der and fear, and even the spirit of worship, though in the 
nineteenth century, and amid railroads, and printing-presses, 
and telegraphs. 

A church that proposes to stoop to the level of human 
reason, and make herself and her doctrines fully under- 
stood by the unregenerate mind, will obtain such measure 
of regard as the rationalist is willing to bestow — no more. 
But a church that throws itself above reason, that com- 



RUSSIA AIMS AT A CIVILIZATION 269 

mands the obedience of reason, in the name of God, will 
make even the philosopher tremble. For this reason, we 
often behold some proud and lofty intellect rejecting the 
truths of salvation as taught by the Protestant Church, 
yielding itself to the pretensions of Romanism, or mastered 
by a pride and audacity superior to its own. To abate one 
tittle of her proudest claims would be fatal to the Romish. 
Church. 

The strong reactionary movement of the Roman Catho- 
lic Church throughout Christendom is one of the most sig- 
nificant facts of the present time. A short time since, it 
seemed as if her power was broken forever. She appeared 
to be not only at the mercy of the people, but to be rejected 
by them and doomed to destruction. The Pope fled before 
the revolutionary wave, and most perhaps supposed that 
the long-predicted overthrow of the Papacy had finally 
come. It seemed altogether improbable that its influence 
could be again restored, and many looked for the speedy 
triumph of Protestantism in Europe. Now, that Papal 
power has not only arisen from its apparent defeat, but is 
wielding at this moment the controlling influence of western 
Europe; scorning all companionship with the world that 
attacked her, she re-asserts all the proudest claims of the 
church in the hour when monarchs bowed before her, and 
has made a great and skillful effort for the recovery of her 
supremacy over the nations. Once more her Jesuits are 
busy in embroiling the world. In Jerusalem, at Constan- 
tinople, in the court of France, they fan the fires of strife, 
and direct the western Powers upon Russia. The jealousy, 
ambition, and pride of England, are successfully played 
upon, until she marches her armies under the guidance of a 
Papal flag, while every effort is made to win the nation as 
a whole back to the support of the Pope. 

In the United States a well concerted and persevering 
attack is made upon the very life of American Protestant 
institutions: the money of Europe is freely used for our 
overthrow; the strife of parties is employed to weaken the 
national sentiment ; the same spirit which has directed the 



270 DISTINCT FROM THAT OF WESTERN EUROPE. 

armies of France and England upon Russia, is excited in 
regard to our own country, and there wants but the fitting 
opportunity, and we may expect an armed attack origin- 
ating in the same motives which gave rise to the war on 
Russia. The Papal power is in the ascendancy in the coun- 
cils of western Europe, and all influences tend swiftly to a 
combination of the Latin nations, with France to lead 
them, on which new union of these civil Powers the Papal 
throne will rest once more, for a time at least, securely. 
This is one of the forms of civilization which are now in 
conflict with each other in Europe. Its ambition is as wide 
as the globe, it aims at nothing less than the supreme 
dominion over all nations. History records the means 
which it has been accustomed to employ to secure its ends, 
and these same methods it will use again when occasion 
offers, with whatever new instrumentalities the modern 
world is able to supply. "What this power can do for the 
world is already known. 

The condition of society where the Papacy has had un- 
disputed sway is too clearly marked to admit of a mistake. 
The sickening monuments of her misrule stand thick upon 
the earth. Liberty has been crushed, public and private 
morality has been destroyed, industry has been crippled, 
and thought has been repressed. Yet, inexplicable as it 
may appear, upon any theory of the supposed advance 
which the human mind has made in these days of light 
and philosophy, the nations are rallying once more, in an 
unexpected manner, around the Papal throne. There may 
be much which is merely political in the movement, but 
there is nothing in the moral or mental condition of Europe 
which forbids the idea that the Papacy may yet bind the 
people of the west of Europe by an earnest faith in her 
pretensions. The science, and steam, and railroads, and 
printing presses of the nineteenth century have not lifted 
men above the influence of superstition or religious impos- 
ture. On the contray, just in proportion as man recedes 
from the true light and Grod, in his liability to embrace 
false religion, and there is but a step between the present 



RUSSIA AIMS AT A CIVILIZATION 271 

infidelity of Europe and the blindest superstitions of the 
Roman Catholic Church. 

Against the Papal form of civilization Russia would be 
strongly and watchfully opposed, from two principal con- 
siderations : first, since the separation of the original church 
into the Latin and Greek churches, the Papal power has 
waged constant warfare upon the Greek church, and has 
left no measure untried to move or force it into subjection 
to the Papal scepter. The quarrel between the two churches 
has been carried on for almost a thousand years ; it is bitter 
and irreconcileable. Russia, as the present head or repre- 
sentative of the Greek church, is the inheritor of this an- 
cient religious war, and of course, would regard with watch- 
ful jealousy any movement of the ancient enemy of her 
ancient mother church, and now equally an enemy to her- 
self. More especially would the Russian government guard 
itself against the power of the Roman Catholic church in 
the latter portion of the reign of Nicholas, when the move- 
ment among the Latin nations in favor of the Papacy has 
been so marked, and when a disposition has been growing 
in England unfriendly to Russia, and a tendency to unite 
with the Papal Powers against her. The Roman Catholic 
church is not only the most bitter foe of Russia, as head of 
the Greek church, but she has been busy in arraying west- 
ern Europe for the overthrow of the power of the Czar. 
Russia stands in opposition to the Papacy from the neces- 
sity of self-preservation. 

The very same feeling which has roused the American 
mind in regard to the Papal Power and its designs and 
aggressions, has excited the Russian nation also, and 
with far more reason, for the attacks upon Russia have 
been more palpable and open : it was but too evident that 
Rome was aiming at the prosperity and even the life of 
Russia, and therefore Nicholas was on his guard. The 
sense of danger, and the necessity of uniting his people for 
self-defense by the power of one national faith, induced 
Nicholas to separate some Russian communities from a 
union with the Roman Catholic church, and this has been 



272 DISTINCT FROM THAT OF WESTERN EUROPE. 

denounced as bigotry and intolerance. The Edinburgh Re- 
view, for April 1855, says : " He gave a persecuting charac- 
" ter to the Russian church, and waged a war of a san- 
"guinary character against the Roman Catholic faith in 
"Poland." If a man is justified in defending his home 
from the intrigues of a spy, or the meditated violence of an 
enemy, then is the Russian government not to be blamed 
for repelling everywhere in its dominions the influence of 
the Papacy. 

The Czar was' not blind to the character or designs of the 
Papal church, nor of the obvious tendency of affairs in 
Europe, and one necessary preparation for the blow which 
has been at last struck at Russia, was to exclude as far as 
possible Catholic influences from his dominions. There 
was no other safe course left for him to pursue. As a sov- 
ereign and protector of the interests of a vast country, he 
was bound to protect her against the presence and machi- 
nations of his country's hereditary, most active, and most 
bitter foe. If he performed his duty with severity or cru- 
elty, for this he should be held responsible ; but Americans, 
who are themselves awaking to a sense of the necessity of 
destroying the influence of the Papacy in the United States, 
or run the risk of destruction at its hands, will never join 
in an outcry against the Czar, because he was not disposed 
to permit the Papal Power to provide the means of annoy- 
ance or injury within his own dominions. Nicholas knew 
full well that no art of Jesuitism would be left untried to 
excite the spirit of dissatisfaction and to stir up revolt among 
his Polish subjects, and with the enemy nourished and 
sheltered in the bosom of Poland, how could he be pre- 
pared for that attack which he knew sooner or later would 
come from western Europe. With a strong Papal influ- 
ence in Poland, where would now be the security of Russia 
in that portion of her territory, and how soon the Allied 
Powers would be able to kindle there the fires of insur- 
rection. 

A sound and justifiable policy dictated the exclusion of 
all Papal influence from the dominions of Russia, and 



RUSSIA AIMS AT A CIVILIZATION 273 

Americans, instead of condemning the Czar for the use of 
any proper measures for obtaining security from Jesuitical 
schemes, would show a statesman- like wisdom if they 
should look more narrowly than ever at the intrigues and 
designs of the Papacy here. 

A second phase of civilization in Europe is the form 
aimed at by the revolutionary movement — that which seeks 
the establishment of Democratic institutions. To this, 
doubtless, Nicholas was inflexibly opposed, and therefore 
he is denounced as the foe to progress, and the enemy of 
freedom. To favor this idea, England and France are 
guilty of the mockery of inscribing Liberty on their ban- 
ners when they march against the Muscovite. However 
strongly the Czar may be opposed to Republican institu- 
tions, he is fully matched in this opposition by Louis Napo- 
leon and the English nobility, while the hatred of the latter 
of any rule of the people, any form of truly popular insti- 
tutions, is more cordial than that of the Czar himself. Let 
the candid American reader once place himself in the 
position of the Emperor of Russia, let him look out on 
the revolutionary spirit of Europe from his point of view, 
and then he will be able better to understand, if he does 
not approve, the motives of the Czar in opposing the 
democratic movement, as earnestly as he does the power 
of the Roman Catholic Church. In the nrsi place, it should 
be considered that an American starts with a deceitful as- 
sumption in regard to the democratic movement in Europe. 
He very naturally looks upon those engaged in it as he 
would upon so many Americans seeking a rational liberty 
embodied in republican forms, such as that for which our 
fathers toiled and died. But American Protestant repub- 
licanism is a widely different theory from that of European 
democracy. Let this difference be borne in mind, and let 
it be remembered also, that while Russia has steadily 
opposed European democracy she has been as uniformly 
the friend of America, and perhaps the motives of the Em- 
peror may then be better understood. A firm, undoubting 
religious faith, and a regard for properly constituted autho- 

18 



274 * DISTINCT FROM THAT OF WESTERN EUROPE. 

rity, are among the controling ideas of the Russian mind. 
This faith is doubtless obscured by superstition, but still it 
is faith, though blindfolded and led astray, a faith strong 
enough to form one of the mightiest elements of national 
power. The respect for authority is also allied to a blind 
reverence even for despotism, but then every Christian 
mind will acknowledge that without these elements, viz : 
a religious faith, and a regard for proper authority, there 
can not be a State. The foundations of government are 
wanting where these are absent. How then would a man 
like Nicholas, educated in the forms and theories of hia 
national church, cherishing as an individual an undoubting 
faith, and observant of the forms of worship, and referring 
all earthly authority, even his own, to God, regarding it as 
resting upon the Divine sanction, how would he look upon 
the democratic theories of modern Europe ? He, in com- 
mon with the rest of the world, would regard the whole 
movement as the direct fruit of the French revolution, and 
that would stand inseparably connected in his mind with 
the invasion of his country and the burning of Moscow. 
He, and every other Russian, would from these associations 
be led to look upon everything savoring of French opin- 
ions with extreme suspicion, or even with disgust. 

It is not necessary, therefore, to regard the feelings and 
policy of Russia concerning the republican spirit of Europe, 
as arising merely from a love of tyranny or a hatred of con- 
stitutional forms of government. The Czar may well be 
excused if he should cherish strong feelings of distrust, and 
even dislike, of that spirit which, receiving its birth in 
France, rushed forth for the overthrow of all the consti- 
tuted forms of society, which regarded nothing as sound, 
and from which nothing was safe, which swept over his 
own uative land like a storm, and wrapped in flames some 
of the chief cities of his empire. 

Again, the emperor of Russia from the very necessities 
of his education and belief, as well as the facts in the case, 
would look upon the democratic spirit of Europe as the 
spirit of atheism. It would be considered by him as an 



RUSSIA AIMS AT A CIVILIZATION 275 

impious attempt to establish a government independent of the 
authority of God. To him it was a proposition to subvert 
the whole structure of society, to banish from the world 
morality and religion, to create a State, and institute a 
society, which should lie without the jurisdiction of God. 
Looking at the theory of the French philosophers of the 
revolution, at the results actually reached in reducing that 
theory to practice, how could a Russian prince regard it but 
as the spirit of atheism arrayed against every form of belief 
and worship, the spirit of lawlessness bent upon the level- 
ing of all distinctions and the overthrow of every descrip- 
tion of authority. Nor was the Russian emperor singular 
in such opinions. The most candid and judicious every- 
where, while thankful for such good as was accomplished 
by the wild outbreak among the nations, headed by France, 
have regarded atheism as the central idea and moving 
power of that bloody era. It was not so much an attempt 
to obtain a rational freedom as the annihilation of every 
form of authority, and the removal of all restraint from 
the individual man. It was an effort to live without God 
in the world, upon the assumption that the authority of a 
government rests upon human compacts, and not upon 
God himself, thus annihilating the moral power of a State, 
and substituting instead the mere will of a present majo- 
rity, with no recognition of the eternal right and wrong, 
nor of God as the ultimate Judge and Supreme Legislator. 
Nor can it be denied that this is the character and scope 
of the radical democratic movement of Europe even now. 
Doubtless there are many good and true men who sympa- 
thize with the disposition to overthrow both the civil and 
ecclesiastical despotism of the Continent, and who desire 
for the people a freedom based upon a Protestant faith, but 
this is not characteristic of the modern revolutionary spirit 
as a whole. In its essential principles it is the antagonism 
of religion as well as of monarchical forms of government. 
It abjures a Protestant faith as decidedly as the belief in 
the supremacy of the Pope. It rejects the cross as scorn- 
fully as the worship of saints. It places the Bible among 



276 DISTINCT FROM THAT OF WESTERN EUROPE. 

the inventions of a priesthood, and the legends of monks. 
It substitutes a holiday for the Sabbath, and the theater, 
the saloon, and the club-house, for the worship of the sanc- 
tuary. Such is this movement in Europe in its most radi- 
cal forms, such was its spirit as manifested in the French 
revolution, and such do we behold it in thousands who 
have made our own country their home. 

European democracy must not be mistaken for, nor con- 
founded with American republicanism. They have more 
points of antagonism than resemblance. The type of the 
one must be sought in the atheistic movement which was 
originated by the French philosophers of the Revolution, 
while the true model of the other is to be found in Ameri- 
can society as it existed in the colonies and in the era of 
our Revolution. It separates man from his God, and recog- 
nizes no higher rule for human action than the present 
will of the present majority. This is the form of civiliza- 
tion which Red Republicanism would establish in Europe, 
and this also is the movement to which Russia has stood 
inflexibly opposed. That she has met it with the watchful 
spirit of despotic power is doubtless true. That she has 
been jealous of every movement in favor of popular liberty 
in Europe is also true — but it is also a fact, that the move- 
ments of the people have partaken of the infidel democratic 
spirit, with the single exception of Hungary, and how far 
that should form an exception we are not now prepared to 
judge. Had that revolution, however, became a general 
one, embracing Italy, Germany, and France, its character 
would have been that which has just been described, for 
such is the type of European democracy as a whole. 

The interference of Russia in Hungary, unjustifiable as 
it was by any moral rule, was not a crusade against liberty, 
but a stroke of policy to secure Austria against that hour 
of need which now has come. Its sagacity as a measure 
of State policy, is sufficiently shown by the late negotia- 
tions, and the present position of Austria. Let it then be 
considered exactly what is meant by most European writers 
when they charge the Russian government with being the 



RUSSIA AIMS AT A CIVILIZATION 277 

foe of liberty. It means that the whole spirit of the coun- 
try is as strongly opposed as the Emperor himself to the 
idea of an infidel democracy, and that the Czar has shut his 
country up, as far as possible, against such influences, and 
discouraged and repressed it elsewhere, according to his 
power. It would be difficult to show how Europe would 
be improved by another French revolution — not local, but 
general in its character — ending, as it inevitably would, in 
the re-establishment of military despotisms. It certainly 
remains to be shown that even Russia would be improved, 
and the condition of the people ameliorated, by any form 
of freedom which rejects as its basis a Protestant faith. 
Russia has not directed her intrigues or her armies against 
American liberties, nor shown herself in any way unfriendly 
to our government or our progress. 

The United States have been twice compelled to meet 
England in arms in order to preserve their liberties, and 
French and English intrigues have been full often arrayed 
against our interests even on this continent; and both 
these Powers have shown a constant desire to become the 
serf-constituted " regulators" of American affairs, while 
Austria and the other Papal states have sought to overthrow 
the Republic by the influence of the Roman Catholic church ; 
in short, there is no Power of Europe that has evinced so 
constant and consistent a friendship for this country as 
Russia. This so-called foe of liberty and progress has 
shown a steadfast regard for that people among whom lib- 
erty and progress are the two national ideas — the chief 
forces by which society is controlled. Americans, then, 
should certainly pause before they echo the clamor against 
Russia which has been raised by the Papal Powers and 
England, for the purpose of vailing their own designs, and 
to justify the Crimean war. It does not necessarily convict 
Russia of being the enemy of mankind, to prove that she 
excludes her most bitter foe from any influence in her 
affairs, or that she guards her interests and people from the 
intrigues of the Jesuits, or even that she does not favor a 
second edition of the scenes of the French Revolution. 



278 DISTINCT FROM TIIAT OF WESTERN EUROPE. 

She may do all this, and yet the government may have 
some scheme of its own for the elevation of humanity — 
some policy fitted for the advancement of the Russian 
people, different both from Red Republicanism, and from 
the civilization which is proposed for the world by the Ro- 
man Catholic Church. The exact character of the Russian 
government can not be understood from either French or 
English descriptions. Their writers observe and narrate 
with previously formed opinions to which Russia is made 
to conform, and their testimony is strongly colored by in- 
terest and prejudice. Such men visit Russia in order to see 
and describe the barbarous foe of liberty and civilization. 
They mark and paint in vivid colors whatever is objection- 
able in Russian society, or the general condition of the 
country, but feel no sympathy with a people struggling 
with heroic spirit against the difficulties that beset them, 
and endeavoring to work out a national destiny. 

Another form of civilization which is striving to estab- 
lish itself in Russia, is that which is the proper outgrowth 
of a Protestant faith. Its influence upon the destinies of 
the eastern world is probably less, so far as national coun- 
cils are concerned, than at any time since the Reformation. 
The Papal influence is the ascendant power in the affairs 
of western Europe, and England declares that she prefers 
the reaction in favor of the Papacy, with the French nation 
to lead it, to the further advance of Russia. She is willing 
to see the Roman Catholic Church again lording it over 
the nations, if only Russia can be humbled. The influence 
which Protestantism now exerts in Europe is by the indi- 
rect and silent power of truth, and not by any great Pro- 
testant nation standing up in noble defense of the principles 
of the Reformation, as England has done in former times. 
America is at this moment the great Protestant Power of 
the world — as such she is watched, hated and plotted against 
by the Papacy, and as such, God is preparing her to execute 
her mission. But Russia is charged with hostility to Pro- 
testantism. The English journals declare that the Russian 
Church is as strongly opposed to a Protestant faith as 



RUSSIA AIMS AT A CIVILIZATION 279 

Romanism itself. The assertion is an unfounded one. The 
Russian Church is not intolerant in its nature, and has not 
one essential element of the Papacy. In the character of 
the church itself, there are no more reasons for hatred of 
Protestantism than are found in the Church of England 
against dissenters. The Russian Church is simply a na- 
tional establishment, with the Greek form of worship. 

The Romish Church is by theory, in spirit and practice, 
the changeless foe all that dissent from her dogmas and that 
refuse her communion. The tolerant spirit of the Russian 
Church, its tendency to affiliate with Protestants, was clearly 
shown in the reign of Alexander, when the government 
united its efforts with those of Protestant churches for the 
circulation of the Bible, and for the evangelizing the world. 
But now this policy, it has been said, has been abandoned, 
and Russia no longer co-operates even in the circulation 
of the Bible. This is true, but then the circumstances of 
this case are worthy of consideration. In the reign of Alex- 
ander, England was the ally of Russia against France. 
Alexander was sincerely desirous of elevating and refining 
his people ; he wished to enter in earnest upon the career 
of national civilization, and he was disposed to regard with 
favor the English example of Protestant constitutional 
liberty, and as^a basis of the work which he hoped to per- 
form, he engaged in the circulation of the Bible, and eu- 
couraged the British Bible Society within his dominions. 

But Nicholas was placed in entirely different circum- 
stances. He found himself compelled to prepare for the 
approaching hostility of western Europe, including even 
Protestant England, notwithstanding her professions. He 
saw the Papacy and Protestantism, m the person of its 
chief champion, arraying themselves against his domini- 
ons, aud with a far more comprehensive and clear-seeing 
mind than Alexander, he perceived that the future great- 
ness and even safety of his country depended not upon 
giving to Russia the impress of western Europe, but upon 
the cultivation of a true Russian nationality. When, there- 
fore, Protestantism, as represented by England, was gradu- 



280 DISTINCT FKOM THAT OF WESTERN EUROPE. 

ally changing from an ally to the enemy of his throne, it 
was perfectly natural that he should think it needful to 
repress the growth of Protestant influences within hia 
dominions. It is altogether unjust, in such circumstances, 
to accuse the Russian government of hostility to a Protest- 
ant faith. England has not always been so pure and dis- 
interested in her policy as to scorn the idea of using even 
a religious influence for state purposes, and what American 
statesmen would desire that even the English church should 
obtain a wide influence in this country, while the govern- 
ment of England was not onty showing unfriendly feelings 
but even making preparations for war, and allying herself 
with a Papal Power against us. 

That Nicholas, under such circumstances as these, should 
discourage the spread of Protestantism in Russia, is surely 
not a very decided proof that he hated its principles ; but 
it shows most conclusively that he was aware of the dangers 
that were gathering round him, and that he had the saga- 
city to perceive the most effectual method of defense, by 
strengthening the national sentiment and the attachment 
of the people to their national church. Discerning the real 
purposes of England through the veil of her diplomacy, it 
would have been suicidal in him to have adopted a different 
course. English Protestantism, in the hands of the govern- 
ment, is not a perfectly harmless thing, and what perplexi 
ties would now surround the Russian Court if a strong 
English religious influence had been permitted to establish 
itself in the country. In distinction from the three forms 
of society just mentioned — the Papal, the infidel democratic, 
and the Protestant as represented by England — Russia has 
been aiming at a civilization which shall be the joint result 
of the national religion, and the cultivation of an inde- 
pendent national life, a civilization not European, but, Rus- 
sian — a political, social and religious structure, fitted to the 
genius of Sclavonians. These considerations, though they 
may not justify the policy of Russia in all respects, serve 
to explain her course, and to relieve her from the charge of 
mere wanton intolerance and bigotry, which has been 



RUSSIA AIMS AT A CIVILIZATION 281 

argued against her. Candor should induce us to give her 
the full benefit of such explanations, and not to present a 
mere carricature of her faults. 

The rapid progress which has been made by Russia within 
the last hundred years is conclusive proof that her system 
has in it the germ of a true life. Seventy millions of human 
beings can not be permanently ruled by a mere show and 
cheat, much less can they thus be taught to make swift 
advances in what elevates and refines the race. Nor can 
they long be crushed by a mere heartless despotism which 
has in it no element of good, which affords no protection 
to the people, and bestows no blessing, and where society 
exists for the benefit of a single man and his court. Such 
a system has no perpetual lease of life, even among a bar- 
barous people. But Russia presents the spectacle of an 
enduring and an improving life. Individuals have been 
often hurled from the throne, but the system itself has re- 
mained unshaken, still constantly accepted by the people, 
and tending also continually towards the adoption of more 
liberal forms. These facts give evidence of the existence of a 
true life, of a system which has been called into being by the 
actual wants of a people, and which continue, because with all 
its faults those wants are at least in some degree supplied. 
The system is endurable, and therefore it remains. Upon 
investigation a very important fact is revealed. The germ 
from which the Sclavonic civilization is unfolding consists 
of two principles, which are identical with the central ideas 
of Protestantism, viz : a strong religious sentiment, based 
on a creed which in its essential features is orthodox, and 
the idea that the State, however represented, derives its 
authority only from the higher sanction of God, and there- 
fore that to a properly constituted human authority obedi- 
ence is rightly due. This theory derives the right of gov- 
ernment from God himself, and not from human compact 
or the mere will of a present majority. "While, therefore, 
the government may properly demand the obedience of the 
Bubject, when in the proper exercise of its authority, because 
wielding a power derived from God, it is under the most 



282 DISTINCT FROM THAT OF WESTERN EUROPE. 

solemn obligation to conform its acts to the principles of 
the Supreme Law of God as revealed in the Holy Scrip- 
tures, nor can the subject be rightfully called upon to obey 
that order of the human government which contravenes 
the statute that has been enacted by the Supreme Legislator 
himself. 

The difference between this and the Papal theory is essen- 
tial and apparent. The Pope also rests his authority upon 
that of God, claiming a divine sanction for his acts, but 
then he assumes to be himself the sole and infallible judge 
of the character of these actions, and thus leaving no liberty, 
or right of judgment or conscience, to the governed, stands 
in the place of God himself, allowing no question, and no 
right of appeal. The Protestant principle secures to the 
citizen the rights of conscience and of private judgment of 
the character of acts of the ruler. The one secures a 
rational liberty, and the other is a crushing despotism. 

The Russian or Sclavonic civilization, then, in its infancy 
now, and though it dimly discovers truth as yet, seeing 
"men as trees walking" in its imperfect vision, does, never- 
theless, embody a true life, resting upon truthful principles, 
distinct from the essential and changeless despotism of the 
Papacy on the one hand, and from an infidel movement on 
the other, and beyond comparison better than either. True, 
the religious sentiment is now perverted and clouded with 
much of folly and superstition, yet the Russian mind is in 
the attitude of faith ; it sincerely believes in the truths and 
rites of the national religion, and may therefore be regarded 
with hope. Authority, too, is used in a despotic manner; 
cruelties and abuses there are many. Still, instead of gath- 
ering up all evidences of present wrong, the true question 
should be whether Russia is capable of a better future, and 
whether she is earnestly and successfully endeavoring to 
rise to a more elevating position in the scale of civilization. 
"While the mind of the nation is bound to a religious faith 
which presents the actual plan of salvation, and while gov- 
ernmental authority is respected as emanating from God, 
Russia may be regarded as possessing not only the elements 



RUSSIA AIMS AT A CIVILIZATION 283 

or national greatness, but as holding to principles from 
which rational liberty yet may spring. And this, perhaps, 
will more clearly appear, if we consider the peculiar form 
which all society in Russia has assumed, a form to which 
there is nothing in the rest of Europe, or at least outside 
of the Sclavonian tribes, that bears a resemblance. The 
patriarchal idea pervades the whole social and political 
structure, from the father of a family upward through all 
the gradations to the Czar, the father of the nation, and to 
God the Heavenly Father of all. In theory, this is not 
only beautiful but true, and could it be properly realized in 
practice, Russia, even though an empire, might become a 
model State. In practice these Russian fathers are, doubt- 
less, often stern, exacting, and cruel ; such fathers as some 
of the Czars have been, have conferred no special blessings 
on their millions of children ; still the beautiful theory 
itself remains a witness against those who abuse it, to be 
itself, perhaps, completely vindicated and reduced to prac- 
tice at some future day. 

Covered, as this theory may now be, by the rubbish of a 
despotic government, or by the superstitious observances 
of a corrupt Church, it is still a great truth, and as such it 
will survive, and in spite of all obstacles it will, in the end, 
clothe itself in a body of fitting institutions. Aside from Pro- 
testantism, there is no theory of social life and government 
in Europe so likely to win for itself a noble future as that 
which prevails in Russia. There is evidently no possible 
hope for Europe through the Papacy. It is utterly incap- 
able of conferring any benefit upon the human race. It 
may persecute and degrade, and destroy, but to elevate or 
to save is no longer within its power. The atheistic move- 
ment is doomed to destruction because the Almighty God 
watches and reigns in heaven. Protestant and Russian 
civilization may yet affiliate, and the goverment of the North 
be liberalized, not by association with an infidel democracy, 
but by the spirit of Protestant freedom. If the power of 
England could now be thrown in favor of the right, how 
mighty the influence she might exert in favor of consti- 



284 DISTINCT FROM THAT OF WESTERN EUROPE. 

tutional liberty. But every shot she fired in the Crimea was 
in favor of Papal aggression, and tended to hinder or defeat 
a noble experiment in civilization, whose success might open 
a new era for the world, and especially for the wasted East. 
It would be wise for those among us who desire that the 
influence of Russia may be destroyed, to inquire what will 
take its place in Europe ; what power will be in the ascend- 
ant, if Russia falls. The choice seems to be between the Pa- 
pacy and Atheism ; a thought worthy the serious attention 
of Americans, and especially of American Christians. Pro- 
testant England, even if she remains Protestant, can not 
now rule Europe. She holds, and must continue to hold, 
with her present policy, only a secondary position. She 
has shaken hands with the Papacy, and she must eat the 
fruits of her bargain.. A Sclavonic civilization, Atheism, 
and the Papacy, are the real contending powers in Europe. 
With which should America sympathize ? 

The aggressive intermeddling policy of England, by which 
she attempted to repress the growth of all other nations in 
order to aggrandize herself, and compel them to buy and 
sell only as she should dictate, a policy which explains alike 
the Crimean war and the earnest support she has given to 
our own rebellion, has been lately exposed and rebuked by 
Mr. Cobden and Mr. Bright, in a debate upon the relations 
of the British Government to China. 

England is endeavoring to conquer China, as she has 
attempted to cripple Russia, and the United States, in 
order to force her to purchase from and sell to her alone. 

Mr. Cobden first showed by statistics that the interven- 
tion of the Government had nearly destroyed the trade 
with China, and then continued as follows : 

"This is the moral — that it is not by blood and vio- 
lence that you are to extend your commerce. That is 
the way to destroy trade, and not the way to create it. 
I hope that after all this expecrience we shall none of U3 
again advocate any violent measures with the view of 
extending our trade either in China or elsewhere. 
The noble lord told us truly that there is one-third 



RUSSIA AIMS AT A CIVILIZATION. 285 

of the human race— that is 350,000,000 or 400,000,000 of 
human beings — in China. They are but very small cus- 
tomers, but look at it in another way. If you are to follow 
that policy which is peculiarly the noble lord's (Palmer- 
stone's), if you are to break into the country, hold it, and 
be its police ; if you are to make another Turkey in China, 
and if, in addition to meeting Russia and France, you are 
to meet the United States at Pekin ; if you are to trouble 
yourselves and future generations with governing and con- 
trolling, and intriguing in China, recollect that you have a 
country of vast extent and prodigious population to govern, 
and that you ought well to consider whether it is worth 
your while to incur all these risks, and enter upon this 
policy, with the proofs that you have that you are not 
likely to do more trade with that country than you are with 
Brazil or Egypt." 

The insolent spirit of England, which leads her to meddle 
with the affairs of all nations, and attempt to control them 
all, was thus rebuked by Mr. Bright : 

" Here we are, a small island on the opposite side of the 
globe, with a population so limited that we are told we 
have not an army that we could transport to Denmark 
[hear, hear], yet still we are somehow to take within our 
great ambition this vast empire of three or four hundred 
millions of persons ; we are to influence the dynasty that 
shall sit on its throne; and in point of fact, we are to 
direct the whole affairs of the country, just as we should 
those of some small neighbor close to our shores. I do not 
know how such an idea ever got into any man's head, but 
having once entered in, and having taken absolute posses- 
sion of the noble viscount, I suppose at his time of life he 
cannot get rid of it." 

The time is not far distant, when England will receive 
the just retribution for the insults and wrongs which she 
has wantonly heaped on the nations. She has reached the 
limit of her aggressions, and henceforth Russia and the 
United States will both stand across her path. 



286 THE NATIONAL IDEA OF RUSSIA. 



CHAPTERXXVII. 



THE NATIONAL IDEA OF RUSSIA. 

The life of a nation resembles that of an individual. Its 
early portion is spent in mere growth and preparation, 
which has, perhaps, no definite aims. There is enlarge- 
ment of parts, a husbanding of strength, a discipline of 
faculties, with no distinct perception of the purpose which 
is to be attained. But the period at length comes when 
the object for which the man is to live and act presents 
itself clearly to the mind, and the individual perceives his 
task, his mission in life is revealed, and thenceforth 
his effort is to shape his actual life according to the 
idea which he has formed. So also with great nations. 
There is a preparatory period in which there is no con- 
sciousness of a special national destiny. Like the boy at 
school, a nation in childhood forms no settled plan for the 
future ; but, in the progress of its growth, there is grad- 
ually shadowed forth — no one can explain how — a concep- 
tion of what the national purpose should be, and this in 
time shapes itself to a clearly-defined idea, and becomes the 
object of national existence and effort. This may be called 
the national idea, and when truly so, it shapes the whole 
policy of a government, and directs upon itself the whole 
energy of a people. As with an individual, so with a 
nation, the actual achievement will bear some proportion 
to the grandeur of the conception and the loftiness of 
the aims, for, in the arrangement of the universe, there 



THE NATIONAL IDEA OF RUSSIA. 287 

seems to be some correspondence between desire and ca- 
pacity. 

Russia, as it would seem, has now so far emerged from 
her years of childhood as to have formed a distinct and 
individual national idea, upon which she has shaped a well- 
defined national policy, and to this all her efforts tend. 
This, then, must be the key to all her movements, and 
until we obtain a clear view of her national idea, Russia 
will remain an enigma, and we shall hear only of despotism 
and barbarism. This policy will, perhaps, be best under- 
stood by presenting, as preliminary, some negative state- 
ments. And first among these, it may be truly affirmed that 
the conquest of Western Europe is no part of the policy 
of Russia. The oft-repeated cry that the Crimean war was 
undertaken for the purpose of preventing the Czar from 
overrunning Europe, and that, therefore, it was a contest 
of civilization against barbarism, has no foundation in fact. 
There is not a single proof that Russia has ever entertained 
the idea of using her military power for the conquest of 
England, France, Germany, or any of the larger nations 
of Europe. Her designs in this direction have been con- 
fined to a control of the Baltic and the adjacent sea. The 
Russian Court has never been seized with such a madness 
for conquest. The Russian statesman knows full well that 
if all these Western crowns could be laid at the feet of the 
Emperor, the gift, if accepted, would be fatal to his country. 
The incorporation of such masses of heterogeneous mate- 
rial into her state, is no part of the Russian scheme. On 
the contrary, such an idea is the exact opposite of the one 
which really rules her. She is much more likely to draw 
around her a cordon of armies to keep Europe out and away, 
than to use them to conquer and incorporate the Western 
nations. In fact, this is precisely the signification of her 
military system, so far as Europe is concerned. Her forti- 
fications are intended to keep Europe away, while within 
her bristling lines of artilleiy she pursues her national work. 
Russia would never attack Western Europe unless in self- 
defense, to ward off a clearly-meditated blow. Whatever 



288 THE NATIONAL IDEA OF RUSSIA. 

has been written in regard to the peril of England or France 
from the arms of Russia, has been either in ignorance of 
her real and obvious policy, or with the direct design to 
cover the true character and objects of the war. That 
hereafter she may seek to cripple these powers, whenever 
she has the ability, may perhaps be expected. 

France and England have made an issue not to be mis- 
understood or evaded. Their utmost strength was employed 
to humble Russia, and will be while a hope of success 
remains. Necessity will compel her to a similar course 
toward them. She has been taught, in a manner which 
she will never forget, tha.t she has nothing to hope except 
from their inability to injure. The idea of the conquest 
and incorporation of the Western nations, Papal and Prot- 
estant, is clearly an absurdity too palpable to be entertained. 
It is not, by any means, a universal dominion of this sort 
to which Russian ambition aspires. The associating of all 
animals of different natures in one harmonious family, and 
within one cage, is a trivial feat compared with bringing 
into peaceful relationship, under one government, the dif- 
ferent races and religions of Europe. The thing is impos- 
sible, even were there adequate physical power, until the 
people shall be all righteous — in short, until the millennial 
age. 

But, possible or impossible, it is not a purpose which the 
rulers of Russia have ever seriously entertained. Whoever 
will glance at the map of Europe will perceive at once, 
that, so far from its being demanded by any interest of 
Russia that she should absorb the German states, she greatly 
needs them precisely where they are. They constitute her 
southern frontier defense, and help to render her impreg- 
nable, by standing between her and her more formidable 
"Western foes. Not conquest and incorporation of Ger- 
many, but influence over its policy, is what Russia both 
requires and seeks ; this, through the Sclavonic race, she 
will be very likely to attain. Of this, the course and posi- 
tion of Austria and Prussia afford sufficient proof. Instead 
of meditating aggressive war upon France and England, 



THE NATIONAL IDEA OF RUSSIA. 289 

Russia merely desires to be free from assault herself, that 
she may pursue unhindered her own separate career; 
and by what means will the influence of Russia over 
Austria be prevented, when seventeen millions of the 
population of Austria are Sclavonians? This fact of the 
alliance of races is the true key to the policy of Austria. 

Neither does the policy of Russia contemplate aggres- 
sive war as the mere propagandist of despotic principles 
and forms of government. She abhors the theories of the 
atheistical movement; they shock the deep religious sen- 
timent which pervades the Russian mind. The late Czar 
began his reign with the necessity of crushing a conspiracy 
which originated in French influence, and he detested a 
spirit which he regarded not as the spirit of freedom, but 
of lawlessness, which sought to trample all authority under 
its feet, and reproduce, even in his own empire, the scenes 
of the reign of terror in France. To prove that Russia 
opposes the infidel democratic tendencies of a portion of 
Europe is not necessarily to show that she is the determ- 
ined foe of human liberty. There are millions in England, 
and millions in republican America, who regard the atheist- 
ical movement on the continent as hostile to the best inter- 
ests of humanity, and tending to enslave, not to liberate, 
the race. There are millions of the firm and devoted 
friends of freedom and progress who would much prefer to 
have every throne in Europe remain, to the triumph of that 
lawless spirit which scoffs at and rejects all authority, both 
divine and human, and claims to be a lawgiver and a god 
unto itself. No man, of course, will attempt to prove that 
Russia was not a despotic government, both in spirit and in 
practice, but it does not prove her love of despotism to show 
that she opposes such a democracy as has once convulsed 
Europe only to the destruction of popular rights. To such 
a miscalled liberty as many seek to establish in Europe, 
the vast majority of Americans are as steadfastly opposed 
as the Czar himself. Let, at least, this justice be done to 
Russia. Has she ever sought to overthrow the constitu- 
tional liberties of England ? Has she ever shown herself 

19 



290 THE NATIONAL IDEA OF RUSSIA. 

hostile to the republican liberty which has embodied itself 
in our own institutions ? She should have all the benefit 
of a clear discrimination between a rational liberty, based 
upon a religious faith and a due recognition of the author- 
ity of God, and a mere desire to sweep all authority and 
restraint away, and enthrone the individual will, or human 
reason, or the bare decision of a majority, in the place of 
God himself. Has Russia shown a settled hostility to any 
movement for the elevation of the race, except the infidel 
one of Europe ? 

This question should be fairly answered before she is 
condemned, and Americans should be careful to distinguish 
between the theory of our Protestant republicanism and 
that false theory of freedom which, discarding religion, 
would begin with bloodshed, and end in the most hopeless 
forms of despotism. 

Neither the conquest of Western Europe, nor a propa- 
gandism of despotic principles, nor the arresting of human 
progress, nor the destruction of human rights, are the pur- 
poses which shape the national policy of the Northern 
Empire. What, tben, it may be asked, is the true national 
idea of Russia ? Her territorial idea is of a kingdom which 
shall include the Baltic on the west, which on the south- 
east shall cover the Elack Sea, the Caspian, and Constanti- 
nople, with a floating eastern frontier advancing toward 
India, while on the north-east her possessions already lie 
along the Pacific, including the mouth and valley of the 
magnificent Amoor. This is the Russian conception of 
territorial limits, and it is one whose grandeur stands 
unequaled by any idea of empire, whether of ancient or 
modern times, except by the American thought, which 
embraces the twin continents of the West. Rome herself, 
in the hight of her pride and power, was but as a third- 
rate power compared with what Russia would be, could she 
once realize her vast conception. It is one of the most 
splendid ambitions that has ever stirred the human heart. 
Let those who so lavishly heap the epithets barbarous, and 
ignorant, and rude, upon Russia, take a map, and sit calmly 



THE NATIONAL IDEA OF RUSSIA. 291 

down and study this national idea of territorial greatness. 
In extent and position, in variety and amount of resources, 
in every element of prosperity and power, such an empire 
would be foremost in all the history of earth thus far ; and 
instead of its being a mere empty vision — a day-dream, to 
muse over — Europe awakes now, with a start, to find this 
whole scheme so nearly accomplished as to render it doubt- 
ful whether the combined strength of the Western nations 
can offer any effectual resistance. These vast regions she 
proposes to populate mainly with Russians, or at least 
Sclavonians, and to extend over it all the influence of a 
single race, and, if possible, a single religion. Lastly, by 
these means she intends to restore to its ancient channels 
the commerce of the East. These, it must be conceded by 
all, are vast conceptions, and they form together what may 
be regarded in general as the national idea of the great 
Northern Power — the scheme which shapes her policy. 
That she has been, or will be, scrupulous in the choice of 
means for the accomplishment of her purposes, will not be 
pretended; but, judged by the moral rules which have gov- 
erned the policy of other nations, she will not be found a 
sinner beyond them all ; and there is something truly ludi- 
crous in the present position of England, which has never 
scrupled to seize and appropriate where she could, in all 
the regions of earth, priding herself now upon her spotless 
and irreproachable integrity for refusing an offer of the 
Czar, for the partition of Turkey, because it did not suit 
her interests, and after it had been virtually approved. 
She who has swallowed half of India, and still declares 
herself insatiate, is shocked and cut to the heart that Russia 
should enlarge her territory. Treachery, force, injustice, 
and oppression have marked the progress of every great 
nation of earth, Russia included, but her virtue is fully 
equal to that of those who are accusing her so loudly ; and, 
of all nations, England is least fitted to teach others the 
commandment, " Thou shalt not steal." 

To work out this great idea, and produce the correspond- 
ing reality, is undoubtedly the main ambition of Russia. 



292 THE NATIONAL IDEA OF RUSSIA. 

To the acquisition of this territory, to establish this unity 
of race on the firm basis of a common religion, to direct 
toward herself the riches of the commerce of the enriching 
East, she bends her energies with a steadfastness and 
strength of will that would seem to be the earnest of suc- 
cess. It is not a policy which depends upon an individual 
or a party. It belongs to the nation, and Czars may be 
deposed, or assassinated, or die in the midst of their 
schemes, still the course of the empire is toward Constan- 
tinople and the East. It will be seen, therefore, that the 
real national idea of Russia is to become a great commer- 
cial state — the great commercial power of the world ; and 
her military array, vast as it is, was never intended for 
conquest, but for self-protection, for an hour like this, when 
Papal hatred and commercial jealousy are seeking to 
cripple her power, to arrest her progress, and to prevent 
her from restoring the Eastern Empire and the Greek 
Christianity on the Sclavonic basis, to far more than their 
original power and splendor. The reader, perhaps, will 
now be prepared to study with increased interest, and more 
in detail, the means which Russia has chosen, and the facil- 
ities which she possesses for executing her designs. 



RUSSIA, LIKE AMERICA, AIMS TO GROW 293 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 



RUSSIA, LIKE AMERICA, AIMS TO GROW BY THE DEVELOPMENT OF HEB 
OWN RESOURCES. 



One of the leading ideas of the policy of this govern- 
ment undoubtedly is to render itself independent, as far 
as possible, of all other nations, and hence its steady ad- 
herence, under great difficulties, to a system of self-culture 
and the endeavor to stretch its dominion over a territory 
which would afford within her own limits the means of 
independent support. Peter the Great undertook the im- 
possible task of civilizing his country by forcing it into the 
mold of Europe. He put Russia into foreign costume, and 
declared that the nation was civilized. His successors per- 
ceived dimly the mistake, and did what in them lay, though 
little, to apply the remedy ; but Nicholas first saw clearly 
that Russia could be made great only by being expanded 
from a national living center of her own, and that the 
individual Russian character must be the basis of the em- 
pire. He therefore adopted a thoroughly national system, 
too exclusive, doubtless, in some of its features, but intended 
to accomplish a purpose worthy of a great man and a great 
nation — the complete development of the resources of his 
empire. Much had been done, indeed, before his reign, 
but he alone had the comprehensive mind which enabled 
him to form the fragmentary designs of his predecessors 
into one compact and clearly-defined system, embracing all 
the great interests of his kingdom, stimulating, guiding, 
and protecting its industry, and opening up its hidden 



294 BY THE DEVELOPMENT OF HER OWN RESOURCES. 

resources. His far-reaching sagacity foresaw the coming 
collision with the West, and he addressed himself to the 
task of rendering his country independent of others. 

The sound statesmanship which dictated this policy is 
now abundantly evident to the world. Russia was not only 
able to bear the shock of Western Europe, but such was 
her financial condition, that, in the very midst of the con- 
flict, the rates of exchange threatened to remove the bullion 
from the Bank of England to St. Petersburg, and against 
every effort made to prostrate her credit, it stood firm and 
unimpaired, and her stocks commanded a better price and 
market than any of our first-rate American securities, 
though we were at peace, and with no external causes to 
impede our prosperity. England, at the commencement 
of the Crimean War, took occasion to sneer at the weak- 
ness of Russia, occasioned, as she declared, by her " barbar- 
ous tariff," as she has now sneered at and raged over our 
Morrill tariff; but this same barbarous Russian system, by 
which home production and manufactures have been stimu- 
lated and improved, proved, in her hour of peril, the salva- 
tion of the empire. England and France might blockade 
every port of Russia for fifty years, and, instead of crippling 
her power or diminishing her resources, they would only 
exhaust themselves, while she grows strong within. They 
might, in this way, for a time, hinder her external progress, 
but she would thereby daily become more formidable from 
the concentration of her strength, from the increasing power 
of her central life, and, in the end, she would burst all bar- 
riers away, and sweep far and wide with resistless flow. 
Such is already the variety and extent of her resources and 
manufactures, that her progress would still be steady, even 
though it were possible to cut off altogether her European 
trade, for she could soon produce for herself whatever she 
purchases in the West, and she has an extensive Asiatic 
trade, which can not be interrupted. But her European 
trade can not be cut off by any blockade that would be 
tolerated by the rest of the world. After the Baltic fleets 
had blockaded the Russian ports through one season, it 



RUSSIA, LIKE AMERICA, AIMS" TO GROW 295 

was discovered that the exports of Russia were still aa 
large as before. All articles had found their way to the 
markets of the world by having first been conveyed to 
neutral ports. Had the Czar been deluded with the policy 
of England, had he allowed Great Britain to become hia 
merchant and manufacturer, suffering meanwhile his own 
resources to remain untouched, and using up the product 
of his Ural gold mines yearly to settle his account for Eng- 
lish goods, he would have been completely at the mercy of 
the "Western powers, compelled either to submit to their 
every demand, or to see himself humbled, crippled, ex- 
hausted even in a single campaign. England seems to have 
so far convinced herself, by her own false reasoning, con- 
cerning the doctrine of free-trade, as to be incapable of 
believing that Russia could make progress under her " bar- 
barous tariff," and, at the beginning of the war, was really 
ignorant of the condition and strength of her foe. 

As in our own revolutionary war England refused to 
believe that her soldiers, duly provided with " pig-tails," 
and each one properly " pipe-clayed," and understanding, 
too, all the mysteries of drill, could, by any possibility, 
be beaten by men in " tow frocks," who knew nothing of 
" pig-tail," or " pipe-clay," or " drill," so with England 
now it has been deemed a sufficient answer to all sugges- 
tions of the strength of Russia to say she is weak, even 
bankrupt, because of her "barbarous tariff." But when 
the Muscovite was found full of vigorous life, well-nigh 
or quite impregnable in his positions, England could no 
more solve the enigma than she could understand the 
battle of Bunker Hill, when the Americans knew no more 
of the proprieties of war than to slaughter and defeat 
regularly-drilled soldiers in " pipe-clay and pig-tails." The 
Czar was too barbarous to comprehend how his state would 
be enriched by digging and coining gold wherewith to 
purchase abroad what he had every facility of producing 
at home ; and so he concluded to manufacture for himself 
what he needed, inasmuch as his people had both time 
and material, and then he would lay up the produce of 



29G BY THE DEVELOPMENT OF HER OWN RESOURCES. 

his gold mines against a day of need, or he would at least 
keep it in circulation at home. At the same time he em- 
ployed a liberal portion of this newly-created wealth and 
newly-developed activity and skill in strengthening and 
multiplying the defenses of the empire ; and in this, with 
liberal hand, he has, it appears, exhausted the power of 
modern science ; and thus, when the Western Powers as- 
sailed him, instead of finding a needy bankrupt, ruined 
by his " barbarous tariff," it w T as discovered that he had 
more bullion in his coffers than the Bank of England, and 
they dashed themselves against fortifications that defied 
their utmost effort, and which can only be captured,' if 
at all, by a most shocking sacrifice of treasure and of 
life. 

It is quite clear that Russia, under the influence of her 
home system, had reached a degree of power, of an inde- 
pendent interior strength, of which the Allies had no ade- 
quate idea, and for which they were evidently unprepared. 
Under the walls of Sebastopol they learned the art of 
war from an enemy they had affected to despise ; and the 
present aspect of Russia before the world conveys the most 
impressive lesson in political economy that has been taught 
in modern times. She now presents a practical argument 
in favor of self-development which can neither be evaded 
nor answered. She stands mighty and self-balanced, and 
therefore calm, self-reliant, and hopeful, reaping the fruits 
of a w T ise attention to the culture of her own national life. 
She presents an example w T ell worthy the study of Ameri- 
can statesmen, of what may be accomplished, even under 
great disadvantages, by a protection of home interests. 

The system which the government has adopted is one 
which embraces in its design the leading interests of a 
nation. It has given no more prominence to the military 
department than was demanded by a prudent regard for 
the condition and purposes of the great powers of Europe. 
Her preparations to meet the assault of the Western Powers 
were neither too rapid nor too extensive. The formidable 
character of the Crimean conflict, and the spirit in wdiich 



RUSSIA, LIKE AMERICA, AIMS TO GROW 297 

it was conducted, showed conclusively that Russia has not 
overrated the means needed for her defense. It must not 
be forgotten that the policy which now controls the empire 
is of recent origin, and owes its present form and efficiency 
to the statesmanship of Nicholas and his son. It has, 
therefore, had too little time as yet to work out completed 
results. There, as in the United States, society is still in 
the transition state, and the Russians, like ourselves, are 
struggling forward in the career of improvement, under all 
the disadvantages which are found in a country where re- 
sources, though abundant, are yet in great measure unused, 
and to a great extent, perhaps, unknown. Peter the Great 
undertook to force upon his country a system of life copied 
wholly from the West, for which his people were unpre- 
pared, and which was in measure unsuited to their genius ; 
and though he awoke Russia to a new life, yet it wore 
more of the appearance of a masquerade than of a real 
life. Alexander, on the other hand, proposes to himself to 
create a civilization for his empire which shall be a proper 
outgrowth of Russian mind, and be based upon the home 
resources of the country. England is disposed to discourage 
and sneer at these efforts, for obvious reasons, precisely as 
she derided the early attempts at manufacturing in the 
United States. The folly and ruinous consequences of 
cherishing home production was duly pointed out, the rude- 
ness of our machinery, the unskillfulness of our workmen, 
the impossibility of competing with English establishments, 
the inferior character of our fabrics, were all most clearly 
shown; and yet, with the fostering care of government 
only capriciously extended, and as capriciously withdrawn, 
and in spite of much adverse legislation, American manu- 
factures have grown up to their present importance. The 
efforts of Russia are being crowned with an earlier success, 
because the Imperial Government has extended to this 
home policy its full support. Still the nation has but just 
entered into this new career, and what it has already 
accomplished may be regarded only as the earnest of a 
more glorious future. The adoption of this policy has 



298 BY THE DEVELOPMENT OF HER OWN RESOURCES. 

placed the national life of Russia beyond the reach of the 
rest of Europe. Her outworks may be, perhaps, destroyed 
but the process of destruction will be more costly to France 
and England than their erection was to Russia, or than 
their reconstruction will be. The Allies can not afford to 
demolish many such fortresses as Scbastopol ; while Russia, 
if she adheres to her present policy, will each year be able 
to construct such defenses with greater facility. 

This system, as has been said, embraces all the great 
interests of a state, although as yet it is not equally devel- 
oped, nor working in perfection anywhere. But great 
results have already been reached, and the promise for the 
future is abundant, and enough has been done to render 
this future secure. The leading idea is to secure for Rus- 
sia the control of the native race, to fill the territory of the 
empire mainly with the native population. For this reason, 
foreign influences and foreign control are guarded against 
with a watchful care ; and the exclusive policy, which has 
brought such showers of reproaches upon Russia, is one 
whose necessity the native American population is begin- 
ning to feel even here, and when we consider the policy 
which circumstances are forcing upon this nation, we shall 
at least be better able to comprehend the motives of 
Russia. She pursues her course, it may be, in a manner 
which the liberal might condemn, and which she, even 
now, is modifying ; but, on the other hand, Americans now 
perceive that in their extreme liberality to foreigners, they 
have been unjust to themselves, have put in jeopardy the 
republic, and have even prejudiced the best interests of the 
foreign population themselves. Russian statesmen are re- 
solved that the native race shall control their country, and 
believe that this is the essential idea of a true national life. 

Then, as next in importance, both for purposes of trade 
and for preserving the national unity, great attention has 
been paid to a system of internal communications. This 
has been conceived and executed on a scale proportionate 
to the extent of the country. The most distant points of 
the empire are already connected with each other by lines 



RUSSIA, LIKE AMERICA, AIMS TO GROW 299 

of river and canal navigation, and these are so located 
in the interior that it is scarcely possible that the do- 
mestic trade of the country should be affected by foreign 
•war. 

These communications are becoming every day more im- 
portant and valuable to the inhabitants, on account of the 
introduction of river steamboats, by which, as with us in 
America, the transit of passengers and merchandise is yearly 
rendered more cheap, more rapid, and more certain. The 
navigable rivers are connected by numerous interlacing 
canals; and, by means of both, the Caspian, the Euxine, 
the White Sea, and the Baltic, have all communications 
with each other, running through the heart of the empire, 
affording almost unequaled facilities for the transportation 
of the various commodities which are required by seventy 
millions of people. 

These Works, begun by Peter the Great, have been con- 
stantly extended and improved since his reign by his suc- 
cessors, as an important feature of national policy ; and, in 
addition to these, the late Czar projected a system of rail- 
roads on a scale equally extensive, two important trunk 
lines of which are nearly completed. 

The government schools, already mentioned, are a most 
important feature in this scheme of national policy. They 
look equally to the protection of the country and to the 
rapid and scientific development of its agricultural, min- 
eral, and manufacturing resources. In these schools thou- 
sands of scholars are scientifically trained in mining, in 
agriculture, and in the mechanical and manufacturing arts, 
and then they are scattered through the country to become 
the practical teachers of the communities in wmich they 
reside. Results of the most important national character 
have already been reached in the mining and manufactur- 
ing operations, which are far more extensive and complete 
than most, either in Europe or America, suppose. This 
fact, perhaps, can not be more clearly shown than by the 
following quotation from an article lately translated from 
the French for the Merchants' Magazine : 



300 BY THE DEVELOPMENT OF HER OWN RESOURCES. 

" At the same time, Russia attempts to naturalize in her 
provinces all the industrial arts of the West, and has made 
a real progress, which is easy to be proved, and of which 
Europe makes too little account. The Czars, in their 
haughty pride, do not wish to be obliged to ask any thing 
from the rest of the world, and, profiting by the different 
climates united in their vast empire, endeavor to cultivate 
the productions of every clime. They have no colonies for 
the production of sugar, but the provinces of Orel and 
Sacolef are covered with immense plantations of beets, from 
which sugar is manufactured. Their southern provinces 
furnish wheat for part of the West. In 1850 the exporta- 
tion was enormous. The northern provinces produce pro- 
digious quantities of flax and hemp. 

" Cotton is cultivated in Georgia and the country taken 
from Persia. Since '1845 indigo has been introduced into 
the Caucasian provinces, merino sheep by hundreds of 
thousands are all around Moscow, toward the Baltic, and 
on the shores of the Black Sea. They prosper everywhere, 
and produce abundantly. Silk is produced in the southern 
provinces, and, in 1833, the Emperor Nicholas caused four 
millions of shoots of the mulberry-tree to be planted. 
The gold mines of Asiatic Russia are very productive, and 
furnish annually one hundred millions of francs to the 
treasury. 

" Finally, the Czars wished to have their wine independ- 
ently of France, and the Crimea is covered with vineyards. 
"We look with astonishment, and almost with fear, at the 
rapid and powerful development of Russian activity ; for 
the genius which has given and still gives impulse to this 
great movement of Oriental slavism is not the friend of 
liberal institutions, or the tendency of the people toward 
political or religious emancipation. Any nation whatever 
that rises and marches onward in grandeur and prosperity 
has a claim to our respect and to our sympathies ; but in 
Russia it is not the people that rise', it is the Autocrat." 

Here is presented, and apparently in an authentic form, 



RUSSIA, LIKE AMERICA, AIMS TO GROW 301 

some most valuable information concerning the condition 
and progress of Russia, but one can not avoid being amazed 
both at the narrow spirit in which the article is written 
and the conclusion which the writer has reached. It proves 
how impossible it is for France to form a candid judgment 
of Russia. 

It is certainly difficult to perceive why a desire to avail 
themselves of the great natural advantages of their terri- 
tory, even to the utmost, should be stigmatized in the 
Czars as a haughty pride. How much more worthy of 
reproach or contempt would they be if they had either 
overlooked these advantages, or, knowing them, had suf- 
fered them to remain unused ! It has generally been con- 
sidered as evidence of wise statesmanship where a govern- 
ment understands and earnestly avails itself of its own 
resources, and, by a course of honest industry, increases the 
ampunt and variety of its productions, until, if possible, it 
can obtain an independent support from its own industrial 
pursuits. 

But it seems that Russia can not appropriate her lands 
to such productions as soil and climate indicate, without 
beino* charged with a haughty desire to become independ- 
ent of surrounding nations. This desire, coupled with pro- 
tection to her own industry, is denounced as an evidence 
of barbarism by England and France. If Russia would 
consent to confine herself to the raising of such raw mate- 
rial as England and France recpuire, sell it to them at prices 
established by themselves, and purchase from them all her 
supplies of manufactured goods, at their prices also, and 
settle by specie the yearly balances, thus making herself 
a huge and helpless dependency of the West, then she 
woukl be admitted to the rank of highly-civilized nations, 
and the loud cry against Russian despotism would be heard 
no more, at least from England. Russia, converted to the 
wisdom of free-trade, would be lauded and caressed. 

The Czars of the North see in the free-trade scheme 
only an effectual plan for sending the gold and silver of 
the Ural district to the Bank of England, and they are 



302 BY THE DEVELOPMENT OF HER OWN RESOURCES. 

barbarous enough to desire to bold it in deposit at borne, 
and employ it for the general advancement and defense of 
their country. England and France are sore amazed at 
this uncivilized want of discernment on the part of Russia, 
and therefore endeavored to enlighten her with cannon- 
shot and twenty-two-inch shells, under General Pellissier, 
the Arabic Professor of Christian civilization, who, in a 
most enlightened and highly-civilized manner, suffocated, 
in their rock fortress, the brave Arabs whom he could not 
conquer in an honorable battle. 

Russia barbarously enacts a tariff' and cherishes her own 
native industry, and avails herself of all the aids of modern 
art, as found among her neighbors. Haughty Russia ! ex- 
claims France ; too proud to be dependent. Barbarous 
Russia ! replies England ; she enacts a protective tariff, and 
manufactures for herself, despising the wisdom of free-trade 
and dependence. Why should not the hill-sides of the 
Crimea be covered with vineyards as well as those of 
France ? Why should not Russia exclaim, haughty 
France ! that seeks to drink wine independently of my 
Crimean vineyards ? 

Why should not merino sheep feed on the hills of Russia 
as well as on the mountains of Spain ? And why should 
not Russians, if they have the skill, be allowed to spin and 
weave their fleeces? Why is it not as reputable to raise 
beets as sugar-cane ? Is it a better proof of high civiliza- 
tion to take forcible possession of some tropical island or 
province, and obtain sugar therefrom by compulsory labor, 
than to grow beets at home ? 

The writer of the article from which the quotation has 
been made, after presenting a picture that shows most 
clearly the vigorous life which pervades the empire on 
account of its industrial activity, reaches two sad conclu- 
sions : first, that the tendency is not toward political or 
religious emancipation ; and second, that the Czar alone 
is rising, not the people. It is doubtless true that the 
tendency of Russian civilization is not toward such a 
political or religious emancipation as France has gained, 



RUSSIA, LIKE AMERICA, AIMS TO GROW 303 

and it is no less true, that no sane, Christian well-wisher 
to humanity would desire such a result. Russia neither 
desires a Papal despotism nor an infidel liberalism, nor 
such a republic as France has established. Few, how- 
ever, out of France, will consider this a just cause of re- 
proach. 

It would, perhaps, open up a new chapter in political 
economy, if some philosopher would explain how, with this 
general and rapid progress of the nation, the Czar alone is 
rising. It has been heretofore supposed that when a nation 
is making swift and permanent progress in agriculture, 
education, commerce, and the manufacturing arts, by which 
new sources of wealth are continually opened, roads are 
laid out, canals are dug, and railways are built, that the 
people are thus inevitably elevated and refined. It has been 
thought that these are the means by which modern nations 
are advancing ; and it is not clear how Russia can be an 
exception, nor how one man, the Czar, can reap all the 
advantage of this general movement of the nation. Such 
statements, of course, show either an invincible prejudice, 
or a determination to wrest plain facts to a wrong conclu- 
sion. Russia is, doubtless, carrying forward her system for 
the stimulation of her home industry with a rapidity and 
success which have astonished and alarmed both France 
and England, and this writer attributes to Russia a hatred 
and jealousy of England, which certainly has never mani- 
fested itself by sending her fleets and armies to blockade 
her ports, to destroy her commerce, and to burn her towns 
and batter down her fortifications. 

It is the successful prosecution of the protective policy 
by which she has grown so rapidly into a great and inde- 
pendent nation, the foremost power of Europe, able to 
cope, single-handed, with her two mighty foes, that so 
aroused the fears and jealousies of England as to lead her, 
goaded on by France, with other ends in view, into that 
disastrous war — disastrous to all parties, whatever its term- 
ination might be — for it could not materially and per- 
manently check the growth of Russia, while all parties 



304 BY THE DEVELOPMENT OF HER OWN RESOURCES. 

engaged might consume upon it the earnings of half a cen- 
tury. 

That policy which Russia adopted for the purpose of 
cherishing her own industry, and to render available 
her own great and varied resources — a system which Eng- 
land denounces as barbarous and injurious to her prosper- 
ity — is the best possible proof of political wisdom, showing 
that Russian statesmen have discovered the only method 
by which their country can attain unto a true civilization. 
She has been reproached with being simply a semi-bar- 
barous military despotism, having neither commerce, nor 
manufactures, nor literature — as contributing nothing to 
the general stock of wealth or knowledge — as producing 
little, originating nothing, and worthy of no respect, ex- 
cept such as may be given to the strength of her armies. 
Then when she adopts a course whose object is to create 
a wealth and power of another description, a greatness 
based on the more ennobling pursuits of a higher civiliza- 
tion, she is accused of barbarous exclusiveuess and savage 
ignorance, because she is not converted to the free-trade 
philosophy of England. 

Simply as a producer of raw materials, no country, how- 
ever productive its soil may be, can reach the highest 
stages of civilization. The intellectual stimulus and cul- 
ture are wanting, by which alone true national greatness 
can be created. Without commerce or manufactures, Rus- 
sia would be a nation of agriculturists, miners, fur-hunters, 
and soldiers. Such a nation would consume all the earn- 
ings of its industry upon food and those coarse, cheap 
goods which manufacturing nations can supply with the 
greatest possible advantage to themselves, and with all the 
profit derived from machinery. 

It would be the unequal contest between unskilled man- 
ual labor on the one hand, and the power of capital, skill, 
machinery, and steam on the other, resulting inevitably in 
a low state of civilization, dependence, and poverty for 
Russia — in wealth and power for those who might supply 
her wants. There would be for her no basis on which to 



RUSSIA, LIKE AMERICA, AIMS TO GROW 305 

rear the highest forms of civilization, and she would re- 
main equally without the means of independence or defense. 
It has been long perceived by the Russian government, 
that, without an extended commerce, the idea of holding a 
first position among nations must be abandoned, but no 
profitable foreign commerce could be maintained without 
a manufacturing system of her own. The materials for 
almost every variety of manufacture were known to abound 
within her own territory, not excepting exhaustless deposits 
of the precious metals, and a net-work of navigable rivers 
and lakes offered, throughout all her vast dominions, the 
means of easy transport ; and it was resolved, therefore, ' 
to create, maintain, and perfect, if possible, a system of 
home manufactures, which should not only render her, in 
a measure, independent of foreign production, but w 7 hich 
should also open to her a participation in the commerce 
of the East. 

But how could this be accomplished without that " bar- 
barous tariff," which has drawn forth such loud com- 
plaints from England. The manufactures of Great Britain 
are more effectually protected, by far, than those of Rus- 
sia can be for a quarter of a century, by all the fostering 
care of the government. The capital and skill of England 
have fenced round her interests more strongly than a tariff 
of prohibition. Her policy aims steadily at a complete 
protection of every branch of her own industry, and from 
this course she has never deviated for a single moment. 
Her free-trade means simply freedom- for all nations to 
sell to her their raw material to the extent of her wants, 
and freedom to purchase from her all manufactured articles 
in return. She throws no branch of her trade open until 
she is certain that she can defy all competition. 

The only possible course then open to Russia was to 
grant such a protection to her infant manufactures as 
should shelter them from a ruinous competition from 
abroad. But it is said that, by this course, the cost of 
her manufactured articles is far greater than it would be 
if she should procure them from England and the west 

20 



806 BY THE DEVELOPMENT OF HER OWN RESOURCES. 

of Europe, and thus the tax upon her imports is laid 
really upon the consumers at home. But is not this an 
entirely inadequate view of the whole subject? It is 
necessary to observe the general result upon the nation at 
large ; it is necessary to compare the Russia of to-day with 
the empire one hundred years ago ; or, we may observe 
only the change which has been wrought in a quarter of 
a century by the influence of this very system which free- 
trade condemns. If it be conceded, for argument's sake, 
that the tax imposed upon foreign goods has been paid by 
the inhabitants of Russia, has there been rendered to them 
and the country at large no equivalent for this money ? 

A new life has been infused into all parts of the empire, 
an increased activity marks every department of society ; 
roads have been opened, canals have been dug, railroads 
have been constructed, steamboats have been placed on 
rivers ; factories have been built, villages have sprung up, 
and local markets have been opened for the productions of 
the soil. The establishment of one principal manufacture 
has called into existence a host of dependent but connected 
branches, and countless new modes of industry, and new 
sources of wealth, have been discovered by the inhabitants. 
By such means new desires spring up, new wants are 
created, and ingenuity seeks the method of supply. Thus 
mind is stimulated to effort, the intellectual power of the 
country is increased and guided to profitable action. 

Capital accumulates, and is expended upon the refining 
arts of life; a higher taste is cultivated in architecture, 
dress, and furniture ; a love for the beautiful is created, 
the fine arts are cherished, and a literature appears. These 
are the processes by which civilization advances toward 
perfection ; upon such a career Russia has entered, and 
the aspect which she has presented in the terrible conflict 
that tested her powers, is proof conclusive of the effi- 
cacy of that system in creating the elements of national 
strength, while the extent of her present eastern commerce 
reveals the rapid progress she is making. If a mighty 
system of national industry, which lays its quickening 



RUSSIA, LIKE AMERICA, AIMS TO GROW, ETC. 307 

hand upon the multitudinous resources of the land, creat- 
ing wealth and sending it through the empire by ten 
thousand new channels, can be produced simply by the 
tax on imports, certainly it is a most profitable expendi- 
ture for the nation, yielding dollars in return for cents 
invested. 

Nothing, however, is clearer than that the active com- 
petition of the home-workers speedily brings down the 
cost of the domestic article to the price at which the for- 
eign goods could be purchased if the trade were free to 
the foreign rival ; and the protection granted to the manu- 
facturer, instead of becoming a tax upon industry, pro- 
vides new and more profitable employment to labor, mul- 
tiplies the comforts of the industrial classes — who are, in 
consequence, better fed, better clothed and educated — 
while the sreneral awakening; and stimulus of thought 
leads, in the end, to mechanical invention, discoveries in 
science and art, and the higher creations of genius. 

The rapid advance of the Northern State, and the new 
career upon which she has entered, have awakened the 
jealousy of England, and aroused her fears ; and, lest her 
own commercial supremacy should be endangered, she 
sends forth fleets and armies to extinguish, if possible, 
this new light of civilization which is dawning upon the 
world; and in order to protect, in this manner, her own 
monied interests, she is willing that millions of lives 
should be sacrificed, and that the Papal despotism should, 
through France, be re-established in Europe. But it will 
prove an abortive effort. Sclavonic civilization has become 
a mighty fact — its march is eastward, and the Euxine and 
the Hellespont must yet be the center of its life. 



308 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 



THE RUSSIAN CHURCH. 

In a religious point of view, the contest in the East lay 
between the Russian Church on the one hand, and the 
Roman Catholic on the other. The two leading powers in 
the conflict head these two great divisions of nominal, if 
not real Christianity. Protestantism, as a religious inter- 
est, did not enter into the war. 

England armed for national aggrandizement, or, to 
speak with greater precision, to prevent what she deemed 
the undue expansion of a rival power, which might lessen 
her comparative importance, and perhaps diminish her 
actual strength. She did not wage war to establish the 
Protestant religion in the East, much less the American 
type of Protestantism. If she gains her commercial ends, 
she will rest content. The character of the Russian 
Church then becomes an exceedingly interesting subject 
of inquiry. 

"Without understanding the nature of that religion which 
is the faith of fifty millions of Russians, we can form no 
correct judgment upon the influence which Russia would 
exert upon Turkey and the East should she gain the 
ascendancy there. If the world is called upon to choose 
between the Papacy and the Russian Church as a ruler 
of the East, we ought to understand the distinctive feat- 
ures of each. As has been already remarked, the Russian 
Church, though adopting the Greek rite, and constituting 



THE RUSSIAN CHURCH. 309 

indeed the Greek Church of modern times, must not be 
confounded either with the Greek Church in Turkey or 
in Greece. 

The latter have shown a persecuting spirit which the 
Russian Church has not manifested. The three divisions 
doubtless sympathize with each other to a certain degree ; 
but the Church of Russia will eventually control and give 
character to the others, unless the Allies succeed in forcing 
her back and repressing her growth. Many — perhaps 
most in America — confounding the Greek with the Rus- 
sian Church, charge upon the latter the spirit of persecu- 
tion which assailed our missionaries in Turkey and Greece, 
and are therefore led to suppose that the Papal Church 
and that of Russia are of similar character ; and thousands 
unjustly imagine that both are equally bigoted, persecut- 
ing, and corrupt. England endeavors to persuade the 
world that civilization has less to fear from the Papacy 
than from the Church of Russia. This opinion most cer- 
tainly has no foundation in truth, but yet it is often ex- 
pressed. 

It is important, therefore, for Americans to make them- 
selves acquainted with the facts connected with this ques- 
tion, and form for themselves an independent judgment. 
With the character of the Roman Catholic Church, its 
spirit, its aims, and its doctrines, the United States have 
been made familiar ; and a nation that has been goaded 
to an almost universal uprising against its insolent de- 
mands, and its plots against Republican liberty, will have 
very little confidence that liberty will be promoted through 
its influence either in Europe or the East. Indeed, one 
of the most cogent reasons why the Americans were 
sparing of sympathy with the Allies in the character and 
aims of that war, was, that just in proportion as success 
attended them, would the Papacy be strengthened, and in 
that exact ratio, also, must the cause of human freedom 
be weakened in Europe, for the -Papacy and despotism, are 
natural and inseparable friends and supporters of each 
other. 



310 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH. 

The characteristics of the Russian Church are less known 
to the people of the United States. Russia has not emptied 
her population by millions upon our shores, nor sought to 
colonize our territories for religious ends; and no hands of 
priests or Jesuits have been ordered on from St. Petersburg 
as spies upon our proceedings, and to subvert, if possible, 
our institutions. We lack, then, those means of judging 
Russia which are unfortunately so abundant in the case of 
Rome. Still the doctrines of the Church of Russia are 
sufficiently well known, and her practice, history has re- 
corded. It will be found that, in essential doctrines, there 
are almost no points of comparison with the errors of 
Romanism. As a religious system, the distinction between 
it and the Papacy is broad and palpable, as a comparative 
exhibition of their theories will show ; and, from this com- 
parison, what the nations have to fear from each may be 
clearly seen. 

The Roman Catholic claims to be the one only true 
Church — the one universal Church, whose dominion, of right, 
and by the authority of God, extends over all the world, 
that there neither is, nor can be, salvation for any with- 
out her pale, and that all who reject her authority and 
refuse her ordinances, are heretics,, to be punished when- 
ever and wherever she has the power, and are to be re- 
garded as in rebellion against God. ]S"or is this a claim 
to spiritual dominion, or in matters of faith only. She 
claims, as the vicegerent of Jesus Christ on earth, to wield 
in his name supreme power in all things, and to exercise 
a rightful control over all governments and rulers of the 
earth. 

This involves not only the right, but the duty, to sup- 
press all Protestant or other States, whether republics or 
monarchies, that refuse submission to her will, and this 
supposed duty she has constantly endeavored to perform, 
either by force or intrigue, and hence her unwearied efforts 
to subvert the government of the United States, her war 
upon the Bible, her assault upon our schools, her efforts 
to control the ballot-box. Hence, also, her intrigues at 



THE RUSSIAN CHURCH. 311 

Jerusalem and Constantinople, and the war with Russia, 
her mighty European antagonist. 

These claims are among the essential ones of the Papacy, 
never ahandoned, never even abated. Religious toleration 
is with her a thing unknown. She endures where she 
must, and crushes where she can. To establish these claims, 
to compel the nations to acknowledge her authority as 
supreme over all things on earth, she has slain fifty mil- 
lions of people in war, at the stake, in the dungeons of 
the Inquisition, and by every variety of outrage and tor- 
ture. Between such a church, claiming the right of uni- 
versal dominion, and a mere national establishment like 
the Church of England, local only in its character and 
claims, its jurisdiction confined within its territorial limits, 
there is a distinction broad and essential. The one demands 
the obedience of the world, of all nations — threatening 
eternal damnation to all who refuse, and interposing every- 
where, and by all means, to enforce its claims, and dis- 
turbing thereby the peace of earth. The authority of the 
other extends over a single people only, and asserts no 
right to interfere with the conscience or worship of sister 
States, and no commission from God to subdue to its own 
faith the surrounding nations. 

The English Church does not pretend that it may right- 
fully interfere with religious worship in the United States 
in order to establish here its own rights, even if it had 
the power. But the Papal Church not only asserts the 
right, but endeavors to obtain the power, and declares that 
it only waits until the power is gained, and that then 
religious liberty shall be put down in this country, and the 
people be compelled to adopt her forms and creed, or be 
punished at her pleasure as heretics. The Russian Church 
is simply a national establishment like the English Church ; 
like that, it is local only, claiming no jurisdiction beyond 
its own territories — no commission from God to exercise 
universal dominion, and to go forth to bring all nations 
into subjection to itself, and in the name of God. It 
claims no right to be the troubler of the world, no author- 



312 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH. 

ity over governments ; it pretends not to be the ruler of 
princes, the governor of kingdoms. 

The claim of the Russian Church is national only; that 
of Rome is universal, and the comparative danger to the 
world from each is therefore easily estimated. The Rus- 
sian Church will simply he co-extensive with the Empire. 
It will not rule the world, unless Russia should conquer all 
nations — a result which no one apprehends. Again, the 
Romish Church claims absolute infallibility, claims to 
speak and decide with the unerring wisdom of God him- 
self, in the language of the Scriptures, "showing" herself 
" to be God." Such a Church, from the necessity of its 
nature and demands, must be a persecuting Church. 

Persecution — the putting down of error — with such a 
hierarchy, assumes the form of duty, and heretics are de- 
stroyed for the glory of God and the safety of the world. 
The Russian Church makes no such claim, and asserts no 
such power; it is simply the national religion of Russia, 
holding its due position in connection with the civil powers. 

The Russian Church wields no such instrument of power 
and corruption as the Romish Confessional. ISTo more sub- 
tle or efficient engine of despotism was ever contrived by 
wicked ingenuity, than this has proved to be in the handa 
of the Roman Catholic Priesthood. 

Possessing themselves by this means, not only of the his- 
tory of human actions, but even of the unuttered thought 
or desire, and pronouncing judgment upon all in the name 
of God, it lays the immortal soul bound, helpless, and ex- 
posed, even to the heart's most secret chambers, at the 
feet of a fellow-creature who has usurped the prerogatives 
of God. The Church of Rome has, in this manner, sub- 
verted the virtue of thousands, who, but for her priests, 
might have remained innocent, has destroyed the purity 
and peace of households, trampling in secret upon the holi- 
est domestic ties, and has managed to guide the policy of 
Courts by its knowledge of State secrets obtained at the 
confessional. It has furnished a power almost sufficient of 
itself for the control of every nation where it has been 



THE RUSSIAN CHURCII. 313 

established, and is essential to a perfect spiritual despotism. 
The Church of Russia teaches the duty of confession, but 
then this confession may be either specific or general, at 
the option of the one who confesses ; and, consequently, a 
practice which, as conducted by Rome, is almost omnipo- 
tent for evil, is, in Russia, incapable of being thus per- 
verted, and can neither be used for purposes of corruption 
or oppression. 

The Church of Rome has, in all places and time, opposed 
with her utmost strength the circulation of the Scriptures 
among the people, knowing well that despotism is secure 
only in proportion to the ignorance of those whom it 
oppresses. Hence its persevering attacks upon the Bible 
and the free-schools of America. Russia permits the cir- 
culation of the Word of God among her people, and such 
was the affinity of the Russian Church for Protestant prin- 
ciples and effort, that in the reign of Alexander a Rus- 
sian Bible Society co-operated with the British Association 
for the printing and distribution of the Scriptures. 

Nicholas, whose policy was more exclusively national, and 
who seemed to foresee from afar the gathering of that storm 
of hostility in England and France which burst with such 
fury before his death on Russia, evidently feared an influ- 
ence which he well knew might be used for political 
purposes, and therefore discouraged and broke off the con- 
nection with the British Bible Society, and suspended alto- 
gether the work which had been begun. To ascribe this to 
the intolerant spirit of the Russian Church seems altogether 
a mistake, nor is there any evidence that it originated in 
any hostility to the circulation of the Scriptures, which 
has always been allowed. Nicholas was a keen and most 
sagacious observer of the tendency of the affairs of Europe. 

lie felt the necessity of protecting his country at all 
points, and he was not willing to expose himself to any 
peril which might arise from a foreign influence of any 
sort established within his dominions, and by which the 
power of the national Church might be diminished. Doubt- 
less he intended to use this national Church for State pur- 



314 IHE RUSSIAN CHURCH. 

poses ; and viewed merely in tlie light of worldy policy, 
his sagacity has been clearly shown by the result. He was 
enabled to concentrate the whole religious sentiment of the 
empire upon the defense of the nation the moment he 
was attacked. Russia's breastwork of united hearts burn- 
ing with religious enthusiasm are more impregnable than 
her granite walls, her frowning artillery, or her sparkling 
lines of bayonets. 

A Church that favors the circulation of the Bible, how- 
ever it may be entangled in superstitious observances, 
holds, nevertheless, within it a living germ, and there is 
reasonable hope of its recovery. Again, the Russian 
Church does not believe in purgatory, nor in the sale of 
indulgences, and consequently does not possess one of the 
chief means of robbery and delusion so freely and profita- 
bly employed by the Church of Rome. jSTor does it pre- 
scribe celibacy for the clergy, and this of itself presents a 
feature, which, in comparison with the Roman Catholic 
Church, should commend it to the world's favorable re- 
gard. Language is incapable of describing the wretched- 
ness and sin and delusion which have been caused in the 
Papal Church by " forbidding to marry." It is a mourn- 
ful characteristic of her apostasy. 

The Russian Church is not entirely free from the error, 
but, compared with Rome, it is of small importance. The 
lower orders of the clergy are all married, while the 
bishops and the highest officers of the Church remain in a 
state of celibacy. These superior ecclesiastics are derived 
from the one only order of monks existing in Russia, which 
might rather be called the cloistered clergy. 

The system of monasteries and convents has little or 
no influence in the Russian State, for they have no rich 
endowments, and are merely establishments supported by 
a revenue from the government ; consequently there can 
be no such pious robbery, no such accumulation of land, 
or hoarding of millions of treasure, as has been accom- 
plished by the similar establishments in countries governed 
by Rome. The industry and wealth of the country are 



THE RUSSIAN CHURCH. 315 

not devoured in Russia by swarms of monks, friars, and 
priests. 

There are in the Russian Church two orders of the 
clergy — one constituting the only order of monks in the 
empire, from whose ranks the higher dignitaries of the 
Church are taken ; but these and their establishments, 
being without independent ecclesiastical revenues, have no 
means of oppressing the people or of making their power 
formidable. 

Women are not allowed to enter nunneries until they 
are forty years of age ; the men may become monks at the 
age of thirty ; and thus the Russian Church has wisely 
guarded against the corruptions which have stained all the 
history of Romanism. 

The intolerance of the Papacy is not found in the Church 
of Russia. The Russian clergy will officiate in Protestant 
houses for worship, and will also permit their own churches 
to be used by Protestant ministers. They are tolerant 
toward all other denominations, and do not pretend to 
confine salvation to their own Church. They do not re- 
fuse to administer the consolations of religion to dying 
Protestants, and they permit Protestants to be buried in 
their cemeteries. 

Attempts have been made to represent the Emperor of 
Russia as only an Eastern Pope, to be as truly feared and 
shunned as the Pope himself at Rome. It would be equally 
reasonable to excite similar prejudices against the sovereign 
of England, who is the head of the English Church, as the 
Czar is the head of the Church of Russia. Such are the 
main features which distinguish the Russian from the 
Roman Catholic Church. 

The difference is radical and essential. In principle, 
they are utterly unlike. One aims at a despotism uni- 
versal and exclusive. For the attainment of such an end, 
the whole system has been most cunningly devised, and 
adhered to with a constancy which has almost insured its 
success. Its steadfast aim is to rule the world — to subject 
all nations to its control. Therefore, its interference is 



316 THE RUSSIAN" CHURCH. 

everywhere felt, its tools and spies are in every land, the 
disturbers of the world's peace. 

The Church of Russia, on the contrary, is the Church 
of a single nation, having, however, twelve millions in 
Turkey, and some also in Greece, who are in sympathy 
with its worship; and while it is clogged, debased, and 
hindered by a thousand frivolous and superstitious observ- 
ances, it has, nevertheless, not one essential element of a 
spiritual despotism, and it rejects every great distinctive 
error of the Roman Catholic Church. With a creed ortho- 
dox in its essential teachings, and with the Word of God 
circulated among the people, it can not be regarded as 
beyond the reach of reformation. 

It has a deep, strong hold on the affections of the Rus- 
sian nation, and, as a body rising rapidly to a prominent 
position among nations through the swift progress and 
expansion of the mighty state of which it is the religious 
basis and life, it is worthy of a careful study and candid 
judgment. It would reflect no credit upon the generosity 
or independence of the American people, if, in regard to 
the Russian Church, we either become the mere echo of 
English prejudices or interested statements, or if we fail 
to make the proper distinction between the Greek Church 
in Turkey, from which our missionaries have suffered, and 
the Church of the Russian Empire. 

A country where the Word of God is circulated, where 
a tract distribution is carried regularly on, by which four 
million tracts have been already distributed, should not be 
treated by Protestants with cold suspicion, much less 
should American Christians permit the " war interest " in 
England to excite in them a spirit of hostility against its 
Church, which evidently might be largely influenced by 
American friendship. 

The following extracts from Stanley's Greek Church 
will show what one of the most distinguished scholars of 
England thinks of the importance of the Russian Church, 
its influence over the people, and what it may yet accom- 
plish for civilization and Christianity in the East : 



THE RUSSIAN CHURCH. 317 

" Western ecclesiastical history would lose more than 
half its charms, if it had not for its subject the great 
national Churches of Europe. And, in like manner, East- 
ern ecclesiastical history must fail of its purpose, unless it 
can find some field in which we can trace from century to 
century, and in their full-blown development, those prin- 
ciples and practices of the Oriental Church which have 
been already unfolded in general terms. 

" This field is presented in the Russian Church. In it 
alone we trace a growth and progress analogous to that 
which Western or Latin Christianity found in the Teutonic 
tribes of Europe. And, although the Northern and Scla- 
vonic elements form the basis of the Church and Empire 
of Russia, yet, by its situation, by its origin, and by the 
singular powers of imitation with which its members are 
gifted, it is essentially Asiatic and Oriental. And, further, 
through the gradual incorporation of Russia into the com- 
monwealth of Western nations, the Eastern Church has 
acquired a voice or speech which it has lost, or has never 
gained, elsewhere. The feeling which the native Russians 
entertain toward the Western world is a likeness of the 
feeling which we ourselves entertain toward the Eastern 
world? The Russian word for a foreigner, but especially 
for a German, is 'the dumb,' 'the speechless;' and it has 
happened, within the experience of an English traveler, 
that Russian peasants, passing by and seeing a conversa- 
tion going on in a foreign language, have exclaimed, m 
astonishment: 'Look at those people; they are making a 
noise, and yet they can not speak!' Very similar to this 
is the way in which, as a general rule, we regard, almost 
of necessity, the Eastern Churches generally. To us, with 
whatever merits of their own, they are dumb. Their lan- 
guages, their customs, their feelings are unknown to us. 
We pass by and see them doing or saying something wholly 
unintelligible to us, and we say: 'Look at those people; 
they are making a noise, and yet they can not speak.; 
In a great measure this difficulty severs us from the Rus- 
Bian Church, as well as from the other branches ot Oriental 



318 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH. 

Christendom. Still, in Russia, if anywhere in the East, 
we can from time to time listen and understand with ad- 
vantage. The Sclavonic power of imitation opens a door 
which elsewhere is closed. The Western influences which, 
from the age of Peter, have streamed into Russia, though 
they have often undermined the national character, have 
yet, where this is not the case, given to it the power, not 
only of expressing itself in Western languages, hut ot 
understanding Western ideas, and adapting itself to West- 
ern minds. A Russian alone presents, amidst whatever 
defects and drawbacks, this singular interest : that he is 
an Asiatic, but with the sensibility and intelligence of a 
European ; that he is, if we will, a barbarian, but with 
the speech and communications of civilization. 

" Another peculiarity of the history of the Church of 
Russia is, that it enables us, within a short compass, to go 
through the whole field of ecclesiastical history, which, in 
the West, while familiar to us in detail, is too vast to be 
comprehended in any one survey. With many differences, 
produced by diverse causes of climate, of theology, of race, 
the history of the Russian Empire and Church presents a 
parallel to the history of the whole European Church from 
first to last, not merely fanciful and arbitrary, but result- 
ing from its passage through similar phases, in which the 
likenesses are more strongly brought out by the broad dif- 
ferences just mentioned. The conversion of the Sclavonic 
races was to the Church of Constantinople what the con- 
version of the Teutonic races was to the Church of Rome. 
The Papacy and the Empire of Charlemagne had, as we 
shall see, their dim reflection on the throne of Moscow. 
Russia, as well as Europe, had its Middle Ages, though, 
as might be expected from its later start in the race of 
civilization, extending for a longer period. The Church 
of Russia, as well as the Church of Europe, has had its 
reformation, almost its revolution, its internal parties, and 
its countless sects. 

" The events are few; the characters are simple ; but we 
shall read in them again and again, as in a parable, our 



THE RUSSIAN CHURCH. 319 

own shortcomings, our own controversies, our own losses. 
The parts of the drama are differently cast. The Eastern 
element comes in to modify and qualify principles which 
we have here carried out to their full length, and beyond 
it ; but it is this very inversion of familiar objects and 
watchwords which is so useful a result of the study of 
ecclesiastical history, and which is best learned where the 
course of events is at once so unlike and so like to our 
own, as in the Church of Russia. 

" In Russian history the religious aspect, on which our 
thoughts must be fixed in these lectures, is, on the one 
hand, that part of it which is the least known, and yet, 
on the other hand, is full of interest, and not beyond our 
apprehension. It has been sometimes maintained by writ- 
ers on political philosophy, that, however important in the 
formation of individual life and character, religion can not 
be reckoned among the leading elements of European 
progress and civilization. I do not enter into the general 
discussion ; but the great empire of which we are speak- 
ing, if it has not been civilized, has unquestionably been 
kept alive by its religious spirit. As in all the Eastern 
nations, so in Russia, the national and the religious ele- 
ments have been identified far more closely than in the 
West, and this identification has been continued, at least 
outwardly, in a more unbroken form. Its religious festi- 
vals are still national ; its national festivals are still re- 
ligious. Probably the last great historical event which in 
any European state has externally assumed a religious, 
almost an ecclesiastical form, is nearly the only event 
familiar to most of us in Russian history, namely, the ex- 
pulsion of the French from Moscow. From the moment 
when Napoleon, according to the popular belief, was struck 
to the ground with awe at the sight of the thousand 
towers of the Holy City, as they burst upon his view 
when he stood on the Hill of Salutation, to the moment 
when the tidings came of the final retreat ' of the Gauls 
and of the thirty nations,' as they are called, the whole 
atmosphere of the Russian resistance is religious as much 



320 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH. 

as it is patriotic. The sojourn of the French in the 
Kremlin is already interwoven with religious legends, as 
if it had been an event of the Middle Ages. A magnifi- 
cent cathedral has been added to the countless churches 
already existing in Moscow to commemorate the deliver- 
ance. ' God with us,' is the motto which adorns its gate- 
way, as it was the watchword of the armies of the Czar. 

" The services of Christmas-day are almost obscured by 
those which celebrate the retreat of the invaders on that 
same day, the 25th of December, 1812, from the Russian 
soil; the last of that long succession of national thanks- 
givings, which begin with the victory of the Don and the 
flight of Tamerlane, and end with the victory of the 
Beresina and the flight of Napoleon. ' How art thou 
fallen from heaven, Lucifer, son of the morning ! ' This 
is the lesson appointed for the services of that day. ' There 
shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the 
stars, and upon the earth distress of nations with perplex- 
ity. Look up and lift up your heads, for your redemption 
draweth nigh.' This is the Gospel of the day. ' Who 
through faith subdued kingdoms, waxed valiant in fight, 
turned to flight the armies of the aliens.' This is the 
epistle. 

" I have dwelt on the religious aspect of this crisis, both 
because it may serve to remind us that there is at least one 
event in the history of the Eastern Church with which we 
are all acquainted ; and also because, coming as it does 
at the end of a series of similar deliverances and celebra- 
tions, it brings before us one special interest which the 
Russian ecclesiastical history possesses, namely, its rela- 
tion, both by way of likeness and illustration, to the history 
of the Jewish Church of old. Hardly in any European 
nation shall we so well understand the identity of the 
religious and national life in the ancient theocracy as 
through the struggles of the Russian people against their 
several invaders. The keenness with which they appropri- 
ate the history of the old dispensation is but the natural 
result of their (in many respects) analogous situation. In 



THE RUSSIAN CHURCH. 321 

the sculptures of the cathedral of which I have just 
spoken as the monument of the deliverance of Moscow, 
it is the execution of one and the same idea when the 
groups from Russian history alternate with scenes from 
the story of Joshua's entrance into Palestine, of Deborah 
encouraging Barak, of David returning from the slaughter 
of Goliath, of the coronation and the grandeur of Solo- 
mon." 

The religious character of the Czar of Russia is thus 
described by Mr. Stanley : 

" First is the Czar. In the West, as well as in the East, 
the frame-work of all religious and civil institutions was 
molded on the idea of a Holy Roman Empire succeeding 
to the Pagan Roman Empire of former times. But in the 
"West this institution has signally failed, as in the East it 
has signally succeeded. Charlemagne was a much greater 
man than any of the Russian potentates before the time 
of Peter. His coronation by Leo was a much more strik- 
ing coronation than any that has fallen to the lot even of 
the greatest Russian emperors. The theory of his empire 
was defended by Dante with far more genius and zeal 
than ever was the theory of the White Czar by any poet 
or philosopher of Russia. But, nevertheless, the Holy 
Roman Empire has faded away, while < the new Ca?sar of 
the Empire of Orthodoxy' still stands. In part, this dif- 
ference is owing to the fundamental diversity of the East- 
ern and Western characters. In part, however, it was 
fostered by the peculiar circumstances of the Russian 
history, and obtained an importance in the Russian Church 
and Empire beyond what may be ascribed to the same 
tendency in other regions of the East. The very slowness 
of the growth of the institution indicates the depth of its 
roots in the national character and history. The trans- 
formation of the Grand Princes of Kieff, Vladimir, and 
Novgorod into the Czar of Muscovy, and of the Czar of 
Muscovy into the Emperor of all the Russias, was not the 

21 



322 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH. 

work of a day or a century ; it was the necessity of the 
long-sustained wars with Tartars, Poles, and Swedes ; it 
was the craving for union among the several princes ; it 
was the inheritance of the ceremonial of the Byzantine 
Empire, through the intermarriage of Ivan III with the 
daughter of the last Paloeologus ; it was the earnest desire 
for peace under one head, after the long wars of the Pre- 
tenders ; it was the homogeneousness of the vast empire, 
uniting itself under one common ruler. The political posi- 
tion of the Czar or Emperor is not within oar province, 
but his religious or ecclesiastical position transpires through 
the whole history of his Church. He is the father of the 
whole patriarchal community. The veneration for him 
was in the Middle Ages almost, it is said, as if he were 
Christ himself. The line of Grecian .-emperors, so it was 
said even by Orientals, had been stained with heresy and 
iconoclasm : never the line of the Orthodox Czars of Mus- 
covy. ' He who blasphemes his Maker meets with forgive- 
ness among men, but he who reviles the emperor is sure 
to lose his head.' ' God and the Prince will it ; God and 
the Prince know it,' were the two arguments, moral and 
intellectual, against which there was no appeal. ' So live 
your Imperial Majesty, here is my head ;' ' I have seen the 
laughing eyes of the Czar' — these were the usual expres- 
sions of loyalty. He was the keeper of the keys and the 
body-servant of God. His coronation, even at the present 
time, is not a mere ceremony, but a historical event and 
solemn consecration. It is preceded by fasting and seclu- 
sion, and takes place in the most sacred church in Russia ; 
the emperor, not as in the corresponding forms of Euro- 
pean investiture, a passive recipient, but himself the prin- 
cipal figure in the whole scene ; himself reciting aloud 
the confession of the orthodox faith ; himself alone on his 
knees, amid the assembled multitude, offering up the 
prayer of intercession for the empire ; himself placing his 
own crown with his own hands on his own head; himself 
entering through the sacred doors of the innermost sanc- 
tuary, and taking from the altar the elements of the bread 



THE RUSSIAN CHURCH. 323 

and wine, of which then and there, in virtue of his conse- 
cration, he communicates with bishops, priests, and deacons. 
In every considerable church is placed a throne m front 
of the altar, as if in constant expectation of the sudden 
apparition of the sovereign. In every meeting, council, or 
college, is placed the sacred triangular ' mirror,' ' the 
mirror of conscience,' as it is called, which represents the 
imperial presence, and solemnizes, as if by an actual con- 
secration, the business to be transacted." 

It is evident that a nation, whose religious and political 
life are so intimately blended, are capable of being pro- 
foundly moved, either for defense of their " sacred soil," 
or to recover the lost possessions of their Mother Church. 
Seventy millions of people thus penetrated by a deep re- 
ligious sentiment, and directed by one who is at the same 
time their political and religious head, can not be perma- 
nently checked by any power in Europe. 

Mr. Stanley's closing reflections upon the possible future 
of the Russian Church may well be pondered by Ameri- 
cans now : 

" I have thus glanced at some of the leading characters 
of the modern Church of Russia, and of its existing tend- 
encies. They will be enough to show that its inherent life 
has neither been choked by its own tenacity of ancient 
forms, nor strangled by the violence of Peter's changes. 
But what its future will be, who shall venture to conjec- 
ture? Will it be able now, in these its latter days, to 
cease from foreign imitations, Eastern or Western, and 
develop an original genius and spirit of its own ? Will it 
venture, still retaining its elaborate forms of ritual, to use 
them as vehicles of true spiritual and moral edification for 
its people ? Will it aspire, preserving the religious energy 
of its national faith, to turn that energy into the channel 
of practical social life, so as to cleanse, with overwhelming 
force, the corruption and vice of its higher ranks, the deceit 
and rude intemperance of its middle and lower classes? 



324 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH. 

The Russian clergy, as they recite the Nicene Creed in 
the communion, embrace each other with a fraternal kiss, 
in order to remind themselves and the congregation that 
the orthodox faith is never to be disjoined from apostolical 
charity. Is there a hope that this noble thought may be 
more adequately represented in their ecclesiastical develop- 
ment than it has been in ours? Will Russia exhibit to 
the world the sight of a Church and people understand- 
ing, receiving, fostering the progress of new ideas, foreign 
learning, free inquiry, not as the destruction, but as the 
fulfillment, of religious belief and devotion ? Will the 
Churches of the West find that, in the greatest national 
Church now existing in the world, there is still a principle 
of life at work, at once more steadfast, more liberal, and 
more pacific than has hitherto been produced either by the 
uniformity of Rome or the sects of Protestantism ? 

" On the answer to these questions will depend the future 
history, not only of the Russian Church and Empire, but 
of Eastern Christendom, and, in a considerable measure, 
of Western Christendom also. The last word of Peter, 
struggling between life and death, was, as has been already 
described, Hereafter. What more awful sense the word 
may have expressed to him, we know not. Yet it is not 
beneath the solemnity of that hour to imagine that even 
then his thoughts leaped forward into the unknown future 
of his beloved Russia. And to us, however curious its 
past history, a far deeper interest is bound up in that one 
word, which we may, without fear, transfer from the ex- 
piring Emperor to the Empire and the Church which he 
had renewed — ' Hereafter.' " 



THE RUSSIAN CHURCH MAT RECOVER THE EAST. 325 



CHAPTER XXX 



THE RUSSIAN CHURCH MAY RECOVER THE EAST. 

The observations which have been made upon the Roman 
Catholic and Russian Churches will naturally suggest the 
inquiry, what would be the character of the religious influ- 
ence which Russia would exert upon the East should her 
power be established there ? Before attempting a direct 
reply to this question, there are some preliminary consid- 
erations which deserve attention. 

Americans are yet in a position to weigh candidly the 
character and claims of Russia, and they can not fail to 
perceive that if she were fitted, in a religious point of view, 
to give Christianity to the regions around and to the east 
of the Hellespont, the Euxine, and the Caspian, then, in 
other resvects, she is better prepared for this mission than 
any nation of Europe ; and, unless some great change 
should occur in European politics, America is the only 
nation that could co-operate with her in that work. 

In the religious aspect of this question it can not be 
denied that Russia has, beyond comparison, a larger inter- 
est in the population of the East than any other power, 
and that she wields over them already an influence greatly 
surpassing that of any other nation. Twelve millions of 
Greek Christians in Turkey sympathize with her in her 
faith and general policy, and regard her as their head. 
The population of Greece is similarly situated, though, 
from position, largely under European control. 



326 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH MAT RECOVER THE EAST. 

Russia lias stretched the lines of her attachments to the 
foot of the Caucasus, and fastens them upon a Christian 
population there. She has commercial relations and polit- 
ical influence through all Persia and even beyond, in China 
and Northern Asia in general. Her facilities for spreading 
a Christian civilization through all these vast regions are 
greater already than those of all the earth besides. She is 
the only power of earth that can, by expansion, incorpor- 
ate these territories under one government. They would 
become merely colonial dependencies of France and Eng- 
land, not integral parts of their home governments. Not 
so with Russia. 

These provinces, if annexed to her dominions, would 
become incorporated with her, a part of herself, as the 
Louisiana Purchase and Texas are now integral parts of 
the United States. Those countries, now ruled by a few 
millions of Turkish masters, treating the Christian popu- 
lation as a degraded caste, would then be as much a part 
of Russia as the provinces around Moscow, and one social, 
political, and religious structure would be extended over 
the whole. There are, as has been said, twelve millions 
of Greek Christians in Turkey, and only one million of 
Roman Catholics. 

Allowing both Churches to be on an equal footing in 
purity and spiritual life, (which they are not), which is, 
then, in the most favorable position for spreading Chris- 
tianity in the East ? France, with her one million of 
Catholics, and twelve millions of Greeks, who hate and 
would oppose her ; or Russia, with twelve millions to sym- 
pathize with and assist her ? This, of course, is upon the 
supposition that they could be spiritually prepared to 
spread the Gospel of Christ. The Oriental character of 
the Russian nation, and the religious affinities which con- 
nect her with the Christian population of the East, desig- 
nate her as the proper agent for recovering that now-wasted 
land, and making it once more what it was during the 
best days of the Eastern Empire. That the breaches are 
to be restored, the old highways rebuilt, and prosperity 



THE RUSSIAN CHURCH MAY RECOVER THE EAST. 327 

and the Gospel once more revisit Western Asia to the 
expulsion of Mohammedanism and its wasting misrule, 
the student of prophesy can scarcely doubt ; but opinions 
differ widely as to the agencies which God will probably 
employ in producing the glorious result. 

American Christians have fondly hoped that this work 
has been committed to the American, or at least to Protest- 
ant missions. Doubtless they have accomplished much. 
What has been thus done in the heroic spirit of self- 
sacrifice and Christian enterprise will not be swept entirely 
away, whatever changes may occur, and whoever may rule 
at Constantinople. 

Still, in any event that now seems possible, Protestant- 
ism must enter the East as a protected and not as a ruling 
element, because French or Russian influence will predom- 
inate, and between these two, as controlling powers, the 
choice of the world must lie. 

If, therefore, some power should hold the East that would 
tolerate the presence and efforts of Protestant Christians, 
it is the utmost that could be expected while political 
affairs remain unchanged. We know that the Roman 
Catholic Church knows nothing of toleration, and from 
France and the Pope there is absolutely nothing to hope. 
If, therefore, Protestant efforts are to be tolerated at all 
in these regions hereafter, it must be through the friend- 
ship of Russia, while by her the main religious influence 
will be exerted, whether it be good or evil. 

It has been already shown that the Russian Church has 
yet a living germ — has a little strength. The distinctive 
errors of the Papacy do not attach to her. She is not what 
most Protestants believe the Papal Church to be — an apos- 
tate and anti-Christian body. On the other hand, she is 
far from being what she should be. Her spiritual life and 
power are overborne and well-nigh smothered by idle or 
superstitious ceremonies ; there is a lack of apprehension of 
spiritual truth, and ceremony is in great degree substituted 
for the religion of the heart. But let it be supposed that 
England, instead of sending against her fleets and armies, 



328 TIIE RUSSIAN CHCJRCH MAY RECOVER THE EAST. 

instead of joining a Papal crusade, had striven to main- 
tain the friendly spirit which existed in the time of Alex- 
ander, when even the government co-operated with the 
British Bihle Society, might we not have seen, ere this, a 
spiritual revolution begun in Russia ? 

Might there not have been an arousing of that Eastern 
Church by a contact with the life of Protestantism, and a 
casting aside of dead forms to assume the garments of a 
living holiness? A tract publication and distribution is 
even now going on quite actively in Russia ; and these 
tracts, and the books published and circulated, are of a 
character to elevate the tone of piety, and quicken and 
strengthen the spiritual life. There seems to be no bar to 
the introduction of Protestant Christian literature of this 
description, for it is said that the censorship of the gov- 
ernment is exercised in a candid and liberal spirit in regard 
to this religious effort. "Who shall say that important 
changes might not thus have been wrought ere this in 
Russia ? 

Could she not thus have been enlightened, liberalized, 
advanced in civilization, and prepared, by the reception of 
a new life herself, to spread the Gospel of Jesus through- 
out the East? Such a Christian intercourse might have 
led to a harmonious and righteous settlement of those 
questions which have since plunged Europe into a terrible 
conflict, whose results were evil only. And if England, 
by her policy, has lost this opportunity of doing good 
to a sister state, and of conferring a precious boon on 
Europe and the East, why should not America endeavor 
to cultivate with her a friendly alliance ; and, as the fore- 
most Protestant nation of earth, strive to infuse, by the 
help of God, a new life and a new spirit into that mighty 
people of the North? Then, should Russia succeed in 
establishing herself in Turkey, the American Churches 
may help to prepare her to Christianize the East, and 
share with her the labor and the honor of the work. Invec- 
tives of the most bitter kind were heaped upon Nicholas be- 
cause of the proposition which he made to England. Would 



THE RUSSIAN CHURCH MAY RECOVER THE EAST. 329 

there have been more dishonor in accepting that offer, and 
thereby securing the peace of Europe, than in engaging in 
a bloody war, in order, not to save, but, in conjunction 
with France, to obtain the exclusive control of Turkey ? 

Leaving the question of right, of moral principle, to be 
discussed elsewhere, let it be supposed that England had 
accepted the oiler of the Emperor of Russia, and that even 
now the fall of the Turkish Empire were passed, the Czar 
ruling over Constantinople, and England instead of France 
established in Egypt, with her railroad or ship-canal, or 
both, across the Isthmus of Suez, opening to Europe once 
more this old highway to India. At the same time, let it 
be imagined that Eussia had perfected one eastward route, 
by railroad, through Siberia, across her vast mineral re- 
gions, to the head of navigation on the Amoor, thus unit- 
ing St. Petersburg and Moscow with the Pacific ; and 
another Asiatic highway, by the Caspian, the Aral, and 
the connecting waters — would Europe and the world suffer 
more from this arrangement than from a sanguinary war 
for much 'more questionable ends? Could Russia, by 
friendly association with such a Protestant power as either 
England or America, be made to sympathize with the 
spirit of evangelical religion, she could effect more for the 
recovery of the East than all Christendom besides. 

Such an opportunity as was never presented before is 
now offered to the American government and American 
Churches to cultivate with that power friendly relations, 
not as against others, but such as are proper to establish 
with all. Would not this advance the general cause of 
liberty and religion more than estrangement and a cause- 
less hostility? 



330 STRUCTURE AND WORKING OF RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT. 



CHAPTER XXXI. 



STRUCTURE AND WORKING OF THE RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT. 

At the commencement of the Crimean war, unwearied 
pains were taken to spread throughout the civilized world 
the idea that the government of Russia is merely a heart- 
less, crushing, military despotism, with no redeeming 
quality, no element of progress, cherishing no regard for 
the people, and no desire for their advancement ; and, 
therefore, the war was declared to be one of civilization 
against barbarism — of humanity against the one great foe 
of liberty and man. 

This accusation is certainly a very grave one, and de- 
serves our serious regard. If such is the character of 
Russia, and if her growth is but a prolonged crusade 
against human rights and happiness and hopes ; if, more- 
over, the powers which assaulted her are the firm friends 
of popular freedom, and took up arms to establish it, then 
have they a right to expect American sympathy, and it 
ought to be freely bestowed. But they who remember 
how our own country has been vilified in the same quar- 
ter, will be disposed to regard with some suspicion similar 
charges against Russia; while the idea that the Allies 
engaged in a contest for the defense of popular rights is 
already abandoned by most. Again, nothing can be more 
ungenerous, not to say absurd, than to rake up from the 
records of other ages, whatever can be discovered there, 
of ignorance, barbarity, or tyranny, and present it as a 



STRUCTURE AND WORKING OF RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT. 331 

picture of Russia as she is at present. The true question 
is, Whether Russia, in spite of all crimes of the past, or 
errors in her government and general policy, is sincerely 
endeavoring, and with good hope of success, to establish 
a form of civilization by which the Sclavonic races may 
be elevated. 

Let it be granted that the Emperor of Russia possesses 
unlimited power. That does not of itself demonstrate that 
the government is despotic and cruel, regardless of the 
welfare of its subjects. The true question is, How is this 
power actually employed ? Is the Czar only a tyrant, 
crushing the proper energies of his people merely that he 
may rule supreme ? Or, is he the exponent of the nation's 
will, the representative of a national sentiment, the recog- 
nized defender of a nation's faith, the guardian of a na- 
tion's resources and honor, a chieftain to direct a nation's 
power ? 

Doubtless the truth lies between these two suppositions ; 
but, then, all the reliable evidence in the case shows that 
it coincides far more nearly with the last supposition than 
with the first. Nothing is more deceitful than names. A 
monarchy may be liberal ; a democracy may be a despot- 
ism of the most hateful character; and even in a consti- 
tutional monarchy, intelligence and merit may be con- 
stantly trampled under foot by a hereditary and incompe- 
tent nobility, absorbing both the honor and wealth of a 
country. 

Notwithstanding all the aspersions which have been cast 
upon the Northern Empire, it is nevertheless true that 
there is no state in Europe where talent is so certainly 
recognized and employed ; where the ablest man so surely 
fills the most important post ; where the road to preferment 
is so freely opened to merit, as in Russia ; and that govern- 
ment is not, in the proper sense, a despotism, where an 
unimpeded ascent is opened from the very lowest to the 
highest positions in society. The candid and philosophic 
Erman presents the following view of the structure and 
working of the Russian system, which should be carefully 



832 STRUCTUKE AND WORKING OF RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT. 

studied by those who have been led to think of it only as 
an engine of tyranny : 

" If we were to endeavor to classify the inhabitants of 
the capital, according to those circumstances of life which 
are pervading and essential, we certainly should not adopt 
the official distribution of the population into fifteen classes. 
The nation, in truth, fall naturally into a few leading 
groups, which remind us of the division of organic bodies 
in natural history, into artificial systems and natural fam- 
ilies. Grouped in this manner, the inhabitants of the 
capital come under the following heads : 

" 1. The numerous class of persons engaged in the serv- 
ice of the state, and enjoying, consequently, high privi- 
leges, and who, collectively and exclusively, are entitled 
and bound to wear the state uniform (Mundir). 

" 2. Individuals who enjoy high privileges, not for their 
own services, but owing to their relationship or connection 
with the first class. Considerable estates and a sort of 
hereditary nobility distinguish this class, which is not, 
however, very numerous. 

" 3. Foreigners, chiefly merchants, who, from a senti- 
ment of hospitality, converted into a maxim of state, are 
treated with more consideration than is strictly due, ac- 
cording to the popular mode of thinking, to their occupa- 
tions and employments. 

" 4. Russian merchants and handicraftsmen, partly free, 
partly in servitude. 

" 5. Russians engaged in trades and manual arts, at 
their own choice and on their own account, or in the serv- 
ice of others, and who have the lowest amount of privilege. 
These, also, are either freemen or serfs ; but this circum- 
stance is here, as in the case of the fourth class, of little 
outward value, and is hardly to be detected in the actual 
relations of life. The clergy do not constitute a particular 
group ; but, according to circumstances, belong either to the 
official class or to the people, and seem to form a mean 
between both. 



STRUCTURE AND WORKING OF RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT. 333 

" In the modern language of St. Petersburg, one con- 
stantly hears a distinction of the greatest importance con- 
veyed in the inquiry which is habitually made respecting 
individuals of the educated class : Is he a plain coat or a 
uniform ? However one may be surprised and shocked at 
first at the unusual value thus set on an outward decora- 
tion, and at the abrupt line which severs the members of 
the same community, yet the system grows more compre- 
hensible, and less offensive, when we fix our attention on 
its actual working. 

" In truth, though the Russian official is sharply and 
completely separated from the rest of the people by his 
uniform, yet the aristocracy thus created is, possibly, less 
odious than that of other countries ; for its internal organ- 
ization is extremely simple ; all who belong to the order 
are on a perfectly equal footing. In the privileged class 
there is no peculiarly favored caste. 

" Again, within this wide circle of privileged equals, 
personal ability and agreeableness of manners are duly 
appreciated. The way in which the interests of the in- 
dividual are involved with the public service gives rise to 
an ' esprit du corps J and, besides, entrance into the most 
favored class in the nation seems to be as easy as it is 
desirable ; thus the public servants in Russia form, in 
truth, a class of nobility which may be called an order of 
merit, which has maintained itself in greater purity here 
than in other states, because Peter I bestowed the offices 
and employments which had formerly been held for per- 
sonal services to the autocrat only as rewards for faithful 
service to the state. 

" Every kind of public service carries with it some per- 
sonal immunities, and only a certain advancement in offi- 
cial rank is required to make them hereditary. Thus, for 
example, the acquisition of landed property, and of serfs 
attached to it, is reserved for a certain rank, (the eighth 
of the artificial classes) ; but, as hereditary succession is in- 
separable from these, there thus arises hereditary nobility. 
It is a remarkable fact, that in society in St. Petersburg, 



334 STRUCTURE AND WORKING OF RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT. 

where there is a constant rivalry between the official and 
hereditary nobles, the former always have the upper hand. 
Here the love of rank or office is spoken of always as a 
peculiar and noble passion; while one not actuated by the 
thirst for honors is described by the word Nedorosl (unde- 
veloped), a term applied in old times to those who, from 
immaturity or bodily defect, were unfit to bear arms. 

" The mutual relation of the official and the hereditary 
ranks in St. Petersburg seems to be very distinctly marked, 
if it be only admitted that a foreigner here can really get 
an insight into the social system. Bat the stranger is sure 
to feel immediately the cautious reserve with which the 
natives converse with him ; and he soon discovers that the 
prompt attention and civility which he experiences in 
society must be ascribed to the desire to conceal the repug- 
nance felt toward every thing foreign, which it would be 
inhospitable to avow. Among themselves, the Russians of 
the upper classes are bound together by a feeling of kin- 
dred, in consequence of which they never feel quite at ease 
but in purely national circles. 

" These peculiarities must not be ascribed to the influence 
of despotism, nor to any wish to conceal from strangers 
the backwardness of the country. They originate in a 
positive homogeneousness of disposition, which unites the 
Russians as one people, and makes them involuntarily 
shrink from contact with a foreigner as from something 
heterogeneous. It can not be doubted that, in feeling and 
moral sentiments, the Russians differ fundamentally from 
the people of Western Europe ; and they themselves say 
that a stranger must obrusyety — that is, become Russified — 
before he can properly appreciate their national character. 

" With respect to the intellectual cultivation of the class 
here referred to, it is impossible to make a general estimate 
of it, or to describe it in terms universally applicable, for 
in this very respect are found the widest differences in the 
same rank of life. Naval officers, civilians engaged in the 
administration of state, and philosophers by profession, 
members of the academy and other public institutions, all 



STRUCTURE AND WORKING OF RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT. 335 

"belong to the privileged class, and meet together as equals. 
It were more to the purpose, and more capable of being 
done briefly, to explain what they understand by social re- 
finement. Here the national circle is characterized by an 
unusual degree of dexterity in the manifold arts of society, 
by a correct and practiced sense of outward propriety, and 
an extraordinary faculty of quick comprehension, and of 
lively repartee, often combined with great felicity of ex- 
pression. On this point previous travelers all agreed, 
though they differ most unaccountably on many others. 
They are obviously in the wrong, however, when they 
ascribe these social gifts to the influence of French man- 
ners. The social refinement of the Russians is altogether 
of home growth, founded in the moral temperament of 
the nation, and plainly indicated in the structure of the 
language." 

Russia, then, under the external forms of its imperial 
government, cherishes a true and most important demo- 
cratic element, and has succeeded, in a degree surpassing 
any other state in Europe, in making merit the basis of 
rank and the condition of power. The same result is aimed 
at as in free America — to place in office the ablest man ; 
and if the system is liable to abuse through the almost 
unrestrained will of one man, it must also be remembered 
that the popular mind makes many and most egregious 
mistakes in the selection of its office-bearers. 

Russia depends not upon a hereditary and imbecile aris- 
tocracy for the operations of her government, but draws 
continually fresh life and power from the people at large, 
regarding not birth or wealth in its selection, but elevat- 
ing merit only, and having constantly at its disposal the 
intellectual strength of the nation. The stimulus which is 
thus infused into the whole mass of Russian society, reach- 
ing to even the lowest circles, may thus be readily con- 
ceived. An order of merit, an aristocracy of talent, is thus 
established, to counteract the paralyzing influence of the 
hereditary nobility; and though the man who wins rank 



336 STRUCTURE A1ND WORKING OF RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT. 

by merit retains it as hereditary iu liis family, yet that 
family is iu turn opeu to the free competition of those who 
continually rise from below. 

A man may hold rank as an empty title, but office and 
power are bestowed upon those alone who are thought to 
possess fitness and capacity. The liberalizing influence of 
such a feature as a nobility of merit can scarcely be esti- 
mated, because of the degree to which that word " despot- 
ism" has blinded the judgment to the actual facts. 

If that government is really the most democratic which 
opens freely the door of preferment to actual merit ; if that 
is most liberal which selects widely from the people those 
who appear most capable, and allows among its officers only 
that official distinction which has been honestly won by 
service performed, then Russia is far more liberal and 
democratic than England, which so bitterly condemns her 
as despotic and barbarous. The Emperor of Russia need 
not hesitate to compare his system with that of England, 
and let them both be judged by their fruits. England and 
Russia confronted each other at Sebastopol, and there the 
world has had a fair opportunity of observing the effi- 
ciency of the two governments as they appear in action, 
and the sympathy of each with merit, aside from birth and 
rank. 

Russia, in her hour of peril, sought for her ablest man. 
The government asked not how many epaulets were on 
his shoulders, or how many stars shone on his bosom, but 
whether he had courage, skill, daring, invention — in short, 
whether he could defend Sebastopol. Such a man was 
found in a mere captain of engineers, and over the heads 
of all titled and noble oues he was placed in command of 
the defensive works of the beleaguered fortress ; and in two 
weeks a barrier was erected that France and England could 
neither cross nor force, and the whole aspect of modern 
war was changed. Nor was this the single example of the 
operation of the system. The whole defense, by the reluct- 
ant confession of the Allies themselves, had exhibited not 
the forced working of mere human machines which had 



STRUCTURE AND WORKING OF RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT. 337 

been anticipated, but the most intense intellectual activity, 
that has manifested itself in a fertility of resource, a nov- 
elty of invention, a skill in the use of means, and a judg- 
ment to direct the right thing at the right time, which has 
never been surpassed. 

It demonstrates the efficiency of that scheme which 
avails itself of capacity wherever found, even in the ranks, 
and elevates it to the fitting position, and bestows the 
proper reward. Such a government reaches democratic 
results under the forms of an empire. England, on the 
contrary, boasts of her constitutional liberty, of a govern- 
ment regarding the welfare of the people ; and calls upon 
the world to aid in crippling the tyranny of Russia, and 
invokes the sympathy of the nations on behalf of these 
down-trodden millions. England called for her men of 
rank, of titles, epaulets, and stars ; she placed men in the 
ranks, and kept them there, whatever their merit. She put 
nobles in office, whatever their incapacity, and one titled 
imbecile was only displaced to make room for another 
equally helpless; and so incapacity and mismanagement 
marked every fatal step of her enterprise, and under it the 
finest army that England ever equipped miserably and 
fruitlessly perished. 

Which, then, of these two systems should be denom- 
inated a despotism : that which by intrusting the conduct 
of affairs to the ablest men wherever they can be found, 
which excites and brings into requisition the whole talent 
of a country, forming a noble order based upon merit only, 
or that which represses and crushes all merit under a 
weight of titled shams and decorated imbecilities ? In 
true democracy ; in opening paths by which the people 
may rise ; in her appreciation and reward of real merit, 
however humble its position ; in her disregard of baubles 
on a man's coat, or the names of his ancestors, Russia is 
far in advance of England, and approximates in this re- 
spect the spirit and practice of America. It is not entirely 
a misnomer to call Russia a democracy, governed by an 

22 



338 STRUCTURE AND WORKING OF RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT. 

emperor — England a constitutional monarchy, under the 
despotism of an aristocracy. 

Another liberalizing influence in the Russian system, 
of a most important character, tending strongly to the 
elevation of the people, is that municipal system which 
embraces so large a portion of the rural population. 
Sheltered within these small municipalities, the germs 
of national freedom are planted thick throughout the 
empire, and they contain the safeguard of the present, and 
the promise for the future. This system must be studied 
in order to understand the condition of the Russian 
peasantry, which has been so widely and utterly misrepre- 
sented. The attention of the reader is invited to the 
following accounts of these rural communities, the first con- 
densed by the London Quarterly from Baron Haxthau- 
sen's " Notes :" 

"The great feature of the rural system is, that every 
head of a peasant family is a member of a commune, and 
as such has a right to a portion of land. These village com- 
munities, which are found in their most perfect state on the 
domains of the crown, have a very regular though compli- 
cated organization. At the head of each village is the stares- 
ta, who presides over a council called the ten — because, says 
the Baron, every ten families are entitled to nominate a 
councilor ; but we think it more likely, both from the dis- 
tinctness of the title and its application, and from the fluc- 
tuating number of members which must have attended such 
a system as the Baron supposes, that the council itself con- 
sisted originally of ten persons, and no more. These officers 
are all elected annually by the peasants. Their duty is to di- 
vide the obrok, which is levied upon the community collect- 
ively, among the individual members, according to their 
ability ; and to distribute any lands which may escheat to 
them by the death of the occupiers. They also form a 
court for the settlement cf local disputes and the punish- 
ment of minor offenses ; in short, there is perfect self-gov- 



STRUCTURE AND WORKING OF RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT. 339 

ernment as regards internal matters. Several of these vil- 
lages form a district, under an officer styled a starchina, 
who, with assessors, holds a superior court and levies the 
recruits required for the army. He is elected by deputies 
sent from the villages within his jurisdiction. A number 
of these starchinates again form a volost, under a function- 
ary, also elective, who, with his assessors, presides over a 
court possessing higher as well as wider authority. We 
think it is impossible not at once to be struck w T ith the 
resemblance of this system to that of frankpledge, com- 
monly said to have been founded by Alfred. Our old 
tithing was generally coextensive with the modern parish, 
and is said to have been so called as containing ten free- 
holders. Whether this is exactly correct or not may be 
doubtful ; but certain it is that here, as in Russia, the num- 
ber ten had something to do with the arrangement ; and the 
persons, whether ten in fact, or more or fewer, were sure- 
ties or free-pledges to the king for the good behavior of 
each other. They annually elected a president, called the 
tithing-man or headborough, who therefore answered to 
the Russian starosta. Ten of these tithings formed a hund- 
red under its bailiff, who, like the starchina, held his hund- 
red-court for the trial of causes. Many of these hundreds 
together formed a shire, having, like the volost, its higher 
or county court under the Shirereeve, who was formerly, as 
mentioned in a statute of Edward the First's reign, (and 
exactly as now in Russia), chosen by the inhabitants. 

"The condition of the crown peasants has been very 
much improved, under Nicholas, by the establishment of 
the ministry of domains — the Russian 'Woods and For- 
ests ' — but said to be more economical in its stewardship 
than ours — a question too delicate for journalistic decision. 
Its duty embraces a rigid care of all the imperial estates, 
but more especially the protection of the poor from the 
extortion of the employees ; and this function certainly 
seems to .be so discharged that the crown villages are 
everywhere the envy of those belonging to private persons. 
All the peasants are free to go where they like ; and any 



340 STRUCTURE AND WORKING OF RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT. ■ 

man leaving his village to exercise a trade pays no higher 
tribute than his share would have been at home as an un- 
skilled laborer ; whereas the nobles generally charge the 
out-living mechanic according to their estimate of his earn- 
ings. Meantime, the ministry of domains has a sort of 
museum of g'eology, agriculture, and manufactures, at its 
office in each province ; and in many villages it has estab- 
lished elementary schools for the peasants. The 'Auto- 
crat's' hand is everywhere felt indeed — or, at least, every- 
where wished for. By stringent laws — whereon no man 
in that region dares to exercise his talent for quibbling, or 
any other tricks of evasion — he has prevented the manu- 
facturers from exercising over their people that tyranny 
which the Manchester school have imported with their 
cotton from the latitude of Louisiana. The sanitary con- 
dition of the workshops is matter of most strict surveil- 
lance — the truck system forbidden — and every master 
forced to provide a hospital, a physician, and a school. 

" In some parts the soil is cultivated by quite a different 
class from any we have hitherto spoken of : they go by the 
name of Polowniki, are perfectly free, and seem to stand 
to the owners of the land in nearly the same relation that 
our tenant-farmers do. Their existence as a distinct class 
may be traced to a very remote period — some antiquaries 
say even so far back as the eleventh century. An ukase, 
in 1725, declared that, not being serfs, they might go 
where they liked, subject to certain regulations ; and their 
condition was further regulated by an order of the Min- 
ister of the Interior, in 1827. Their present tenure seems 
to be nearly as follows : The rent consists of half the 
harvest — the tenant finding the stock, as also the labor in 
the erection of farm-buildings, for which the landlord pro- 
vides the materials. The length of the leases varies from 
six to twenty years, but either party contemplating an 
actual dissolution of the connection must give a year's 
notice before the expiration of the expressed period." 



The English reviewer finds a parallel to this system, 



as 



STRUCTURE AND WORKING OF RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT. 341 

is seen, in the rural institutions of England in the time of 
Alfred, which were the germs of the British constitution ; 
and why, therefore, do they not contain also a guarantee 
of the future of Russia? The American reader will at 
once perceive a strong resemblance in these "communes" 
to those New England municipalities, the townships, 
which were the nurseries of our intelligence and our lib- 
erties. The elevating principle of self-government is im- 
bedded in both, and that is a principle not only of life but 
of power. 

The second extract is from a writer in Harper's Maga- 
zine, professing to give the very words of an intelligent 
Russian, explaining the process by which emancipation 
was going swiftly forward in 1854. The speaker is de- 
scribing the dawn of freedom for the serfs, which, since he 
wrote, they have obtained : 

" A reaction commenced at the beginning of the present 
century; and, since that time, a system of emancipation 
has been silently operating in Russia, to which the world 
can show no parallel. In the first year of the century, 
Alexander made it a fundamental law of the empire that 
no more grants of serfs should be made to any individual 
whatever. In the mean time, the extravagance and profli- 
gacy of the nobles had passed all bounds. They became 
popularly known as Velmoje — ' those who say and it is 
done.' Their expenditures outran their income, and they 
were forced to mortgage their estates. Institutions were 
established by the emperor for lending money to these 
spendthrifts, at a high rate of interest, secured by mort- 
gages upon their lands and the serfs pertaining to them. 
As these mortgages ran out, the crown took possession of 
the escates, and the serfs became peasants of the crown. 
In the fifteen years just past, the numbers of the peasants 
of the crown has increased by a million and a half, not- 
withstanding the numerous emancipations that have taken 
place, while the number of serfs has increased but half a 
million. The two classes are now just about equal in 



342 STRUCTURE AND WORKING OF RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT. 

numbers ; but it is estimated that fully half of the serfa 
are mortgaged to the state beyond the hope of redemption. 
These must all, within a few years, fall into the possession 
of the crown. 

" But will they gain any thing by the transfer ? "Will 
they not still be serfs ? They will gain much. Instead of 
being subjected to the caprice of individuals, their condi- 
tion is fixed by general laws and principles, which, in in- 
tention at least, operate in their favor. The best evidence 
that can be offered of the superior condition of the crown 
peasants is the eagerness of the serfs to pass into their 
number. It happens not unfrequently that when the gov- 
ernment offers for an estate a price less than the proprie- 
tors are willing to accept, the serfs join together and pay 
the difference, in order that they may pass into the hands 
of the state. Even if the system of emancipation goes on 
without acceleration, the serfs will be wholly absorbed by 
the state within the space of two or three generations. 

" The crown peasants are grouped into communities of 
two or three thousand souls. The use of the soil belongs 
to these communities as a mass, the fee-simple of it being 
nominally vested in the crown, and each peasant is charged 
an annual obrok, or rent, of ten or twelve rubles. The 
whole community is chargeable with the payment of the 
obrok and capitation tax of each of its members. Each 
commune has a sort of elective assembly, presided over by 
the starishiJia, or mayor, which meets at regular periods, 
and has charge of all the internal affairs of the body. It 
apportions to each family its due proportion of the land, 
collects the taxes, has charge of the distribution of the 
recruits among the several families, punishes all petty 
offenses, and has jurisdiction over all disputes arising 
among the members of the commune. In a word, there 
is probably no body of people who have so entire a 
control of all their local affairs, with so little interfer- 
ence from the superior authorities, as do the Russian peas- 
ants of the crown. It is true, that in the general affairs 
of the empire they have no voice ; but in all that concerns 



STRUCTURE AND WORKING OF RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT. 343 

their every-day life they are untrammeled. The govern- 
ment exercises no control over the movements of the peas- 
ants. Any one of them who wishes to leave the place of 
his birth can do so by obtaining permission of the com- 
mune ; and this can not be refused if he is able to make 
provision for the performance of his communal duties. 
Provided with a certificate from his commune, the whole 
empire is open before him without let or hindrance. It is 
from this class chiefly that the artisans who flock in such 
numbers every summer to St. Petersburg and Moscow are 
drawn. They carry on the whole of the extensive interior 
commerce of the empire, and find ample space for the 
exercise of their wonderful mechanical faculty. 

" Thus, within certain narrow limits, the Russian crown 
peasant is an absolute freeman. He is, to be sure, subject 
to many extortions from rapacious and unprincipled gov- 
ernment employees ; but the occasions upon which he 
comes in contact with these are so few, compared with 
those in which the serf of the noble is exposed to the 
exactions of his owner and overseers, that his condition 
is looked upon with desire by the serfs. This is not the 
hopeless longing with which the slave contemplates the 
state of his master, or the poor laborer of other lands 
regards the lot of those above him. No impassable bar- 
rier separates the two classes. The serf knows that in the 
natural course of things he or his children will pass into 
the class of the peasants of the crown; and the crown 
peasant knows that it is the Czar that has raised him 
from the condition of the serf." That Czar has now liber- 
ated them all. 

These statements will enable us to form a more accurate 
judgment concerning what is called " Russian despotism," 
and all may see who will that a noble future is already 
opening before her. 

Another powerful agency in liberalizing the spirit of the 
Russian government is found in that system of manufac- 
tures and commerce which she is so assiduously endeavor- 



344 STRUCTURE AND WOKKING OF RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT. 

ing to establish, and which France and England are as 
earnestly striving to repress and destroy, and, thus far, are 
making war upon civilization themselves. A barbarous 
despotism would be quite unlikely, in the first place, to 
conceive such a system, nor could it long exist beneath its 
influence when once in successful operation. A commer- 
cial and manufacturing state becomes of necessity a highly 
civilized one, and intelligence and wealth sweep away at 
last the despotic features of the throne. 

Just in proportion as the empire succeeds in its new 
career will the influence of the people in the government 
increase. Nicholas himself shaped the whole policy of his 
reign toward the liberalizing of his institutions and the 
elevation of his people, and he died regretting that he had 
been unable to accomplish more. The emancipation of 
twenty millions of government serfs, which the late em- 
peror had so far accomplished that they considered them- 
selves virtually free, was a vast step toward a complete 
change in the condition of the lower peasantry, and that 
change has now been nobly wrought by his noble son. 

The following account of the criminal system of Russia 
was condensed by the London Quarterly Review, from 
" Haxthausen's Notes on Russia," and was published be- 
fore the Crimean war : 

" Political offenders, who are merely to be kept under 
surveillance, live, to all appearances, in the ease of free- 
dom, at Wologda ; those whose sins are of a deeper dye 
become exiles — that is, go to Siberia. The exiles are re- 
moved to their destination in convoys of one hundred or 
two hundred, under charge of an escort ; and, until the 
number is complete, they are kept in a comfortable prison, 
well lighted and warmed. While en route, they experience 
much kindness from the Russian peasants, who send them 
presents of their best food at every resting-place ; and, in 
large towns, the excess of such contributions over what 
they can consume is so great that it is sold to buy them 
better clothing. Before starting, the convicts are inspected 



STRUCTURE AND "WORKING OF RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT. 345 

by a surgeon, and those who are unable to walk are put 
in carriages ; of the others, every two men carry a chain 
of four or five pounds weight. They only walk fifteen 
miles a day, and every third day they rest. Wives are 
allowed, and expected, to accompany their husbands. The 
journey lasts seven months. In the Asiatic part of it the 
comforts are not on the same scale, and there is often great 
mortality; between 1823 and 1832 it amounted to about 
.ne-fifth, and the average number of exiles was ten thou- 
sand a year. On arrival, the worst subjects are sent to the 
mines ; and, in former times, they hardly ever again saw 
daylight ; but, by the present emperor's regulation, they are 
not kept underground more than eight hours a day, and 
on Sunday all have undisturbed freedom. Those of a less 
heinous stamp are employed on public works for some 
time, and then allowed to become colonists. The least 
serious offenders are at once settled as colonists in South- 
ern Siberia, and thenceforth may be considered as quite 
free, except that they can not quit their location. In such 
a soil and climate, with industry, they may, within two or 
three years, find themselves established in good houses of 
their own, amid fields supplying every want of a rising 
family. It is asserted that the young people reared in 
these abodes turn out, on the whole, of most respectable 
character, and are associated with, accordingly, on the 
kindest terms by neighbors of other classes — especially the 
peasants of native Siberian race, who, by the way, are all 
entirely free, and many of them very rich. The only draw- 
back to this paradise arises from the recent and rapidly- 
increasing production of gold, which is said to have already 
done considerable harm to morals. Let us hope that the 
Arcadian simplicity of Van Diemen's Land will escape the 
similar pollution threatened it by the vicinity of Port 
Philip. 

" A model prison at Odessa is described as greatly more 
successful than any we know of nearer home. It contains, 
we are told, seven hundred criminals, who all work at dif- 
ferent trades, their earnings being either applied to pro- 



346 STRUCTURE AND WORKING OF RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT. 

inoting their comfort while \n durance, or given them to 
start in an honest life with, on their emancipation. On 
entering the prison they wear a chain ; but, on good be- 
havior — very generally within three months — they walk 
the streets without it. They are allowed to go out to work 
for private individuals, under the direction of one of the 
best-conducted prisoners, and are constantly employed to 
put out fires, yet have scarcely ever been accused of steal- 
ing on such occasions. After ten years a full pardon is 
very often granted ; in fact, not one-tenth of the whole 
number are detained beyond that period, and, on its ex- 
piry, many obtain small offices under government." 

This is abundantly confirmed by the statements of Erman, 
as the following quotation will show : 

" Among the various tales circulated in Western Europe 
respecting Siberia, may be reckoned the statement that 
the exiles of this or some other description are obliged to 
hunt the sable or other fur animals. But, in truth, it is 
only in the Uralian mines and those of Nerchinsk, and in 
certain manufactories, that persons condemned to forced 
labor are ever seen ; and several of the rioters whom we 
saw here in Beresov had already served a year of punish- 
ment in Nerchinsk. All the rest, and the great majority 
of the Russian delinquents, are condemned only to settle 
abroad ; and, if they belong to the laboring classes, to sup- 
port themselves — yet, with this consolation, that, instead 
of being serfs as heretofore, they become in all respects as 
free as the peasants of Western Europe. Political offend- 
ers, however, who belong, in Russia as elsewhere, gener- 
ally to the upper classes, or those not used to manual labor, 
are allowed to settle only in the towns of Siberia, because 
the support allowed them by the government can thus reach 
them more easily. 

" I have often heard Russians, who were intelligent and 
reflecting men, mention as a paradox which hardly admits 
of an explanation, that the peasants condemned to become 



STRUCTURE AND WORKING OF RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT. 347 

settlers, all, without exception, and in a very short time, 
change their habits, and lead an exemplary life ; yet it ia 
certain that the sense of the benefit conferred on them by 
the gift of personal freedom is the sole cause of this con- 
version. Banishment, subservient to colonization, instead 
of close imprisonment, is, indeed, an excellent feature in 
the Russian code ; and though the substitution of forced 
labor in mines for the punishment of death may be traced 
back to Grecian examples, yet the improving of the offend- 
er's condition, by bestowing on him personal freedom, is 
an original as well as an admirable addition of a Russian 
legislator." 

The authority of these statements is not to be disputed, 
and they show conclusively that whatever the condition of 
Russia once was, her criminal system, under the enlight- 
ened direction of Nicholas, was so modified as to compare 
favorably with that of any other state of Europe, and per- 
haps surpasses any in the number which it reforms and 
restores to society and to usefulness. 



348 EUSSIA AS SHE NOW IS, AND HER PROBABLE FUTURE. 



CHAPTER XXXII. 



EUSSIA AS SHE NOW IS, AND HER PROBABLE FUTURE. 

It is hoped that Americans will not feel that too much 
time and space are here occupied with the character, re- 
sources, and policy of the great Northern Empire, and the 
treatment which it has received from those "Allies" who 
have lately undertaken to settle our American affairs. 
Russia, among all the powers of earth, has remained true 
to us in our hour of trial. For many years her friendship 
for us has been increasing; she felt deeply, and is still 
grateful for American sympathy in her own great struggle 
with France and England ; and, because of common perils 
from a common enemy, and from many points of resem- 
blance in our national resources, capabilities, and policy, 
the Great Empire of the East and the Great Republic of 
the "West are very likely to be not only friendly, but 
allied powers in the not remote future. 

The causes which have brought Russia and America into 
sympathy are not events which pass and leave no trace 
behind. The drawing together of these two nations is one 
of the mighty movements whose influence sweeps over 
centuries. The Russian fleet anchored in our harbors, the 
enthusiastic welcome given to its officers, the time of this 
significant meeting, the joy with which it thrilled all Rus- 
sia, these things are solemn prophesies of the future. 

Those who have regarded this as an empty "flirtation," 
while America, as they think, longs only for an alliance 



RUSSIA AS SHE NOW IS, AND HER PROBABLE FUTURE. 349 

with England, mistake both the temper of our own people 
and the signs of the times. 

The United States desire peace with England, if she will 
do us justice; but Americans have been forced, by her own 
conduct, into a position where they regard her good opin- 
ion far less than ever before. 

They know her power, and yet they do not fear her, and 
are by no means, at present, in a mood to court her favor. 
Great Britain must wipe out not only the stain, but the 
memory of her conduct in this rebellion, before the United 
States will seek her favor. But there are no wounds to 
heal which Russia has made ; there is no bitterness in the 
memories of the past. The friendship first formed has 
been growing stronger from the beginning, and events indi- 
cate that it will reach far into the future ; and, whether we 
look at Russia as she now is, or consider what she soon will 
be, we may be thankful that we may count upon the friend- 
ship of such a power, both in our present conflict and in 
the severe struggles which apparently await us in almost 
the immediate future. 

Russia stands now before the world with every element 
from which to construct the most powerful empire that has 
yet arisen on earth, not even excepting Rome, for her civ- 
ilization springs from the nobler and intenser life of Chris- 
tianity ; and possessing already the mightiest political and 
religious organizations of the world, she is just starting 
upon a new career, with every advantage gained from mod- 
ern progress. She is the head and representative of the 
great Sclavonic race, which, even in Poland, would rally to 
her, were not the people held back by the aristocracy, very 
much as the people of the South have, by the slavehold- 
ers, been brought into a war with the Government. She is 
the sole life-power in that Sclavonic civilization in which is 
bound up the destiny of a hundred millions of people. 

Her national Church is the grand life-center of almost a 
hundred millions bearing the Christian name, and these can 
be brought to the true Christian life only through the in- 
strumentality of Russia. They must all be reheaded under 



350 EUSSIA AS SHE NOW IS, AND HER PKOBABLE FUTURE. 

her, if the fragments are ever gathered. Beyond any other 
nation, Russia is penetrated hy the religious life. What- 
ever we may think of the spirituality of that religion, it is 
the controlling power of the State ; it is, indeed, the soul 
of the political body. 

The Czar is reverenced, not so much as a political officer, 
a mere emperor, as the religious head and father of the 
people. He rules rather as the head of the Church than as 
the governor of the State ; and this fact alone may show 
us what measureless power there is in a nation numbering 
seventy or eighty millions, bound, by religious enthusiasm, 
to one personal leader. 

Russia presents, too, the noblest moral spectacle of mod- 
ern times. Foremost among all nations, she, who has been 
denounced as the barbarian despotism, steps forth the cham- 
pion of human rights, investing, at once, some twenty-five 
millions of serfs with all the ennobling rights and responsi- 
bilities of citizenship, and then changing an absolute mon- 
archy into a constitutional kingdom; and it proves both 
the strength and the value of the government, that these 
vast changes have been wrought without bloodshed or seri- 
ous commotion. These two great acts inaugurate for Rus- 
sia a new era ; they prove that, in truly liberal ideas, in 
measures intended to elevate the working people, she is in 
advance of every nation in Europe, not even excepting 
England; that a spirit pervades her like that which is lib- 
erating our own laborers, and that a new-born life, energy, 
and enterprise are quickening the whole mass of the Rus- 
sian nation — a life in character, activity, and aims, closely 
resembling our own. 

The emancipation act and the new constitution are the 
sure prophesies of her magnificent future. Russia and 
America are both passing through a revolution which will 
place the future greatness of both on the same basis, and 
that an immovable one — a working population of landhold- 
ers. The change which is being effected in the South by 
the breaking up of the great estates, and placing them in 
the hands of the laborers, and the operation of our home- 



RUSSIA AS SHE NOW IS, AND HER PROBABLE FUTURE. 351 

stead law, are doing for America precisely what the eman- 
cipation of the serfs is doing for Russia. In both nations 
the workers will own the land to a far greater extent than 
in any other country of the world, and will make them 
true democracies, whatever the name of the government 
may be. 

The new freemen of Russia are already purchasing small 
farms, all over the empire, and the government assists them 
by loaning them money, and cherishes, in all ways, the new 
national life. The increased value of the lands of the Rus- 
sian Empire is already beyond calculation, and improve- 
ments are rapidly going forward on all sides. The new 
wants of the people are giving a new impulse to manufac- 
tures and internal trade, steamboats are multiplying on her 
net-work of rivers, and the whole nation feels the throb of 
an intenser life. Her nobles, who formerly spent their 
time and money abroad, are now living on their estates, 
anxious to assist in the general improvement of their 
country. • 

Before emancipation, such a thing as a day-school was 
scarcely known among the peasants ; but since, in the short 
space of two years, more than eight thousand have been 
established, and this shows how quickly educational insti- 
tutions of all grades will be established throughout the 
land. Their eagerness to learn is like that of our own 
freedmen, and, as there is no prejudice of color or race to 
overcome, the serfs being Russians, it is easy to see, that, in 
a short time, all traces of former condition will disappear, 
and, in every sense, the population of Russia will be a 
homogeneous body, animated by one national life. The 
New Testament is being circulated among the people at 
twelve cents per copy, and it is intended that the religious 
life of Russia shall keep pace with her material develop- 
ment. 

This robust, expansive Sclavonic life is applying its en- 
ergies to a territory that, in Europe, stretches from the 
Baltic to the Black Sea, w T ith an eastern frontier which is 
floating on toward India, and with a valley, on the north 



352 RUSSIA AS SHE NOW IS, AND HER PROBABLE FUTURE. 

of China, nearly equal to that of the Mississippi, opening 
upon the Pacific, and traversed by a navigable river more 
than two thousand miles long ; a position which, in spite 
of Western Europe, will give her a controlling influence 
over China, Japan, and the whole East Indian Archipelago. 
Her past history, her present irrepressible aspirations, her 
Asiatic character, her relations to the Greek Church, all 
point steadily to the occupation of Constantinople, the 
removal of Mohammedanism from the line of her march, 
and then, with her navy on the Baltic, on the Euxine and 
Dardanelles, and the Pacific, with her boundless resources, 
her hundred millions of people elevated by free institutions, 
and quickened by friendly contact with our American life, 
with a national Church coextensive with her territory, and 
that Church giving already signs of spiritual resurrection, 
why should not^Russia recover that Eastern empire, and 
become the regenerator of Asia ? 

Such is the nation which proposes to join hands with our 
Republic, and walk with us into the nobler future which is 
opening before the nations. Her firm friendship has helped 
to save us from foreign intervention, and common sympa- 
thies and common dangers may bind us 3till more closely 
hereafter. 



ENGLAND — HER PRESENT CONDITION, POWER, ETC. 353 



CHAPTER XXXIII, 



ENGLAND— HER PRESENT CONDITION, POWER, AND PROSPECTS. 

The statements which have been presented, drawn from 
sources with which the mass of the people are probably not 
familiar, w T ill enable them to form more accurate opinions 
than have hitherto prevailed in regard to the great nation 
which alone, among all European powers, is likely to re- 
main our friend, and, perhaps, become our ally in the 
stormy future upon which the world is entering. 

It is equally important that Americans should be able to 
measure accurately the condition, power, and resources of 
those who have combined to hinder our progress, and crip- 
ple our power; who have striven, by all means short of 
actual war, to make the rebellion a success, and thereby 
ruin the Republic here, and the cause of free institutions in 
Europe. We ought to know what ability France and Eng- 
land have for attack, in order to compare with it our own 
power for offensive or defensive war. For this purpose it 
is proposed, first, to study the condition of England. 

Great Britain must be judged, not alone by her present 
position and power, but by her elements of permanent pros- 
perity, be they few or many, which may enable her to main- 
tain her present supremacy in competition w r ith other 
nations, and especially with Russia and America, in the 
new career upon wdiich these are entering now. England 
will probably find, when too late, that, in attacking Russia 
and the United States, she has provoked a struggle from 

23 



354 ENGLAND — HER PRESENT CONDITION, POWER, ETC. 

which neither party can recede, until it is determined 
whether she, with France, can dictate to the world ; and, if 
she discovers that the conflict involves either a change in 
her institutions, or a surrender of her national life, she 
must remember that the issue is one which she made up 
and presented herself. It has not been forced upon her 
either by Russia or America. 

What, then, are the elements of her power and sources 
of her life, and what does her present condition indicate for 
the future? The first essential element of enduring- na- 
tional greatness is a home territory sufficient for the support 
of the population of a first-class power. Where this is want- 
ing there can not be a great independent nation ; there can 
not be one mighty homogeneous body of population, whose 
life and power of growth are derived from a common 
center, and from which center continuous lines of attach- 
ment and interlacing bonds spread over the whole nation, 
like the nerves and veins of the living body. This requires 
one undivided theater of national growth and activity, 
broad enough to bear up the social and political structure. 
There may be, without these, a greatness derived from sep- 
arated colonial territories, a manufacturing and commercial 
greatness and power, enduring or temporary, according to 
circumstances; but the territory of a nation, its extent and 
quality, must, in the end, be the measure of its power. 

Of course, territory alone can not insure national power ; 
but, if one nation has a domain which will support a home 
population of twenty-five millions only, and another holds 
land enough to maintain one hundred millions, and is equal 
in all other advantages, the latter has elements of power 
four times greater than the former, nor would distant colo- 
nial possessions make up the deficiency of territory at home. 

These colonies, while they can be held simply as tributa- 
ries, may increase the wealth and power of the home gov- 
ernment through its manufactures and commerce ; but, in 
the end, prosperous colonies throw off the yoke of bondage, 
and new nations spring up to compete for the commerce of 
the world. 



ENGLAND — HER PRESENT CONDITION, POWER, ETC. 355 

What, then, is the condition and prospect of E agland in 
regard to this point? What are the foundations of her na- 
tional structure, and what are her prospects in rivalry with, 
or hostility to, Russia and America, for the next quarter of 
a century? 

England, Wales, Ireland, and Scotland, together, have a 
territory of ahout one hundred and twelve thousand square 
miles. This constitutes the whole home territory of Great 
Britain. It is less than that occupied by our three States 
of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, and less than half the size 
of Texas. England, alone, is not quite as large as the sin- 
gle State of Alabama. 

The arable land of England is estimated at only twenty- 
eight millions of acres, which is less than the estimated 
arable land in the single State of Illinois. While the home 
territory of Great Britain is about one hundred and twelve 
thousand square miles, that of the United States is about 
three millions of square miles, all in one body, and which, 
by navigable rivers, lakes, railways, and coast-line naviga- 
tion, can be controlled by one people and one central gov- 
ernment. 

These numbers form the proper basis of comparison be- 
tween the United States and England which reach into the 
future, though they are by no means indications of their 
present relative strength. But such comparisons will be 
truthful guides in the future, because the time is not dis- 
tant when Great Britain will lose the control of every one 
of her principal colonies, and our present war is consolidat- 
ing our people into one American nation, whose life is vig- 
orous enough to extend over a continent. England, at no 
very distant period, must rest her power upon the resources 
of her home empire, competing as she may with the rest 
of the world for the trade of her present colonies. 

England is almost a miracle of energy and power; she is 
the most wonderful product, thus far, of modern civiliza- 
tion, and no American should desire to diminish aught of 
her proper glory ; but, when she proposes to interfere with 
our private affairs, when she seems to desire our ruin, and 



356 ENGLAND — HER PRESENT CONDITION, POWER, ETC. 

gives her sympathies to our bitterest enemies, and forms 
alliances to hinder our progress, and holds herself in a 
threatening attitude, it will do us no harm to remember 
that, ere this century closes, she will see here a hundred 
millions of people, who will be at least her equal in every 
thing pertaining either to peace or war, and outnumbering 
her nearly three to one. 

On this territory of one hundred and twelve thousand 
square miles, Great Britain has twenty-nine millions of 
inhabitants, averaging, for the whole surface, two hundred 
and fifty-eight persons. It is evident, therefore, if we re- 
gard the land as a basis, the British Empire has reached the 
limit of growth, and, indeed, has passed that limit, unless 
her great estates are divided, for one-third of her popula- 
tion is, even now, fed from foreign countries. Her power 
to maintain her present rank among nations, and even her 
ability to keep her population from starving, depend upon 
her being able to supply the markets of the world with her 
fabrics, and retain her position as the chief factor of the 
world's commerce. Should other nations succeed in com- 
peting with her on this, her chosen field, her political 
supremacy would at once be stricken down. Hence her 
extreme anxiety in regard to the progress of Russia and 
America, and her attempts to put them down by force, when 
she fears that they will not only manufacture for them- 
selves, instead of buying from her, but will become her 
rivals in the great markets of the world. 

The London Quarterly, for July, 1861, thus sets forth 
those fears which were the real motives for the attack on 
Russia, and for the hostile attitude of England toward the 
United States: 

" The policy which the Czar has marked out for him- 
self appears for the present to be the consolidation of 
his empire and the encouragement of foreign trade, as 
forming the basis of that maritime greatness which is a 
traditional object of Russian ambition. "Whenever the 
mercantile and maritime development of Russia shall be 



ENGLAND HER PRESENT CONDITION, POWER, ETC. 357 

in any degree proportioned to its colossal empire, it is 
impossible that such a country should not become an ob- 
ject of apprehension to all independent States. 

" England has immense interests at stake in the main- 
tenance of her commercial ascendency in the East ; and if 
Russia should ever acquire the power to control British 
trade, or become a successful competitor for the supply of 
the principal markets of Asia, a heavy blow will have 
been struck at our political greatness." 

The leading article in the North British, for May, 1863, 
reveals very clearly what gigantic specters are terrifying the 
people of England — one in the East and the other in the 
West. The writer turns, first, to Russia, with intense 
alarm, with visions of Cossacks quartered in the capitals 
of Europe, but comforts himself with the prediction that 
the Russian Empire can not long be held together; she 
will, undoubtedly, he says, be disintegrated, and Europe 
will be relieved from terror. 

He then turns to the Republican specter of the "West. 
English thinkers have just begun to get glimpses of the 
real significance of this war, and the revolution through 
which we are passing. They begin to perceive that this 
rebellion forms the transition stage from a Confederacy of 
States to a true American Nationality. They see that the 
people are determined to form, now, one consolidated Amer- 
ican Nation. This vision of an American Nation has 
frightened England from her propriety. This, above all 
things, she dreads, and, to prevent it, she hastens with all 
aid and sympathy to the side of the Rebels ; hastens to 
send fleets w r ith Enfield muskets, rifled cannon, and mans, 
and arms, and sends forth piratical ships, under the Rebel 
flag, to plunder and burn our ships. An American Nation 
controlling this American continent is a thing not to be 
endured. 

The writer in the North British comforts himself, and 
quiets his fears, first of all, by declaring that such a thing 
can not be. 



358 ENGLAND — HER PRESENT CONDITION, POWER, ETC. 

"Fully may it be granted, and religiously may it be 
believed, that large purposes in the world's future are, in 
the divine intention, to be accomplished for and by the 
nations of the North American continent. Nor need the 
boldest speculations on this ample field be restricted or 
suppressed. But when this liberty of speculation has been 
granted — sobriety barely listened to — then there comes in 
a question of momentous import, which may thus be 
worded : Shall the destinies of the North American na- 
tions be accomplished, and the divine purposes thereto 
relating fulfilled, by the means of a one all-grasping, all- 
absorbing empire, doing its ruthless pleasure from the 
Mexican Gulf to the Arctic regions — from the sea-board of 
the Atlantic to the sea-board of the Pacific Ocean? — shall 
it, indeed, be thus that the same Hand which long ago scat- 
tered the nations from the plains of Babylon and Nineveh, 
will be seen favoring an enterprise of the same quality, in 
these last times ? A negative answer to a question of this 
sort must, we think, commend itself to all calm minds, on 
whatever grounds it is argued — whether the religious as- 
pect of the question be regarded, or that of political or 
philosophical speculation. It shall not be that the desti- 
nies of the nations of the North American continent will 
be worked out under the administrative hand of a Nebu- 
chadnezzar." 

He then goes on, prophetically, to declare "the inevit- 
able and not remote disintegration of the hitherto United 
States." Not quite satisfied that he has laid this specter 
yet, he proceeds to say : " It is nothing but a dream, after 
all. We might stop short of formal prediction, and might 
affirm, on the premises given us, that this gigantic North 
American Empire which haunts the dreams of loyal Amer- 
icans is a dream, and can never be a reality." 

He then kindly invites us to " disintegrate " for the bene- 
fit of the world, and England in particular, and intimates 
that, if we do not, God will probably " come down " and de- 
stroy us, as he overthrew Babel, the city and tower of old. 



ENGLAND — HER PRESENT CONDITION, POWER, ETC. 359 

"Disintegration, gracefully accepted, timely submitted 
to, and wisely turned to account, is the call of Providence 
audibly addressed to the people of the United States at 
this moment. We say it is the call of Providence; and 
this phrase brings with it a train of thought which we do 
not propose to pursue; or thus far only to follow it. On 
all grounds of secular calculation, the gorgeous phantom 
of an empire, stretched from ocean to ocean, which now 
rules the American mind as a frenzy, is, as we think, de- 
monstrably an absurdity : no such mad scheme shall ever 
be realized. But turn now to another side of the subject. 
If at all the ways of God toward the human family, so far 
as these are known to history, may be understood and 
interpreted — and if there be a visible overruling of human 
affairs — this intervention of Heaven, this ' coming down of 
the Lord to see the city and the tower,' has been repeated 
from age to age — in Asia, in Europe — in the most remote 
times, in times quite recent; and always it has occurred 
at moments when some vast conception of boundless em- 
pire and irresistible despotism has been proclaimed, and 
boasted of, and has seemed near to be realized. At such 
critical moments a voice from on high has been heard, ' It 
Bhall not be.' The instances need not here be named ; but, 
among all these instances, not one can be mentioned that 
carries upon its front, as this latest instance does, the char- 
acter of a national delirium." 

These English terrors, these fits of shivering apprehen- 
sion at the growth of Russia and America, afford a com- 
pletely satisfactory clue to the meaning of the Alliance, 
the invasion of the Crimea, and the present hostility to 
the United States — the hitherto United States, as the North 
Bretish delights to call us. 

These things show at*once the fears and perils of Eng- 
land. She knows that, if Russia and America become 
great manufacturing nations, with a commercial marine 
and navy proportioned to their power in other respects, 
her own supremacy will be gone. She will be tempted to 



360 ENGLAND — HER PRESENT CONDITION, POWER, ETC. 

make desperate efforts before she will yield lier present 
place of pride, and hence our own continual danger. She 
will watch for our overthrow. She will ruin us if she can. 
Let us, then, turn again to the study of her condition and 
resources. 

Russia and America are both pursuing a true democratic 
policy in regard to their lands. They are putting them, 
as rapidly as possible, into the hands of the people. The 
Russian freedmen are rapidly buying them homes, the gov- 
ernment loaning them money for the purpose, while our 
homestead law gives every man who wishes it a farm. 
America and Russia are being occupied by a land-owniug 
yeomanry, the true basis of national power, stability, and 
growth. England is pursuing the exactly opposite policy. 
She is depriving her people everywhere of land, and forc- 
ing them downward to the condition of serfs, from which 
her agricultural laborers are, even now, but a step removed. 
Alison, writing thirty-one years ago, says there were 
then four millions of land proprietors in France, while 
there were not three hundred thousand in Great Britain 
and Ireland. In France, he says, " the proprietors are as 
numerous as the other members of the State ; in England 
they hardly amount to one-tenth part of their number." 

This was thirty-one years ago. Investigations made 
since, show that even this estimate of Mr. Alison is much 
too high. 

In the Rev. H. "Worsley's Essay on Juvenile Depravity, 
quoted by Kay in his Social Condition of the English 
People, it is stated, that all the lands of England are in 
the hands of thirty-two thousand proprietors. This one 
amazing fact, all the lands of England in the hands of 
only thirty -two thousand men, is quite sufficient to account 
for the perfect sympathy between the English aristocracy 
and the Southern slaveholders, and also for the shocking 
condition of the English laborers, as described by Mr. 
Kay. England, alone, contains some eighteen millions of 
people, only thirty-two thousand of whom own a foot of 
land ; and the destructive process of diminishing the num- 



ENGLAND— HER PRESENT CONDITION, POWER, ETC. 361 

ber of estates, of bringing the land into still fewer bands, 
is yet going swiftly forward. 

The English system, then, is precisely that of the slave- 
holding South, which brings all the lands, and all the other 
wealth of the country, into the hands of a few, and re- 
duces the laborers to slaves, or a condition but little better 
than slavery, even in England, as her own writers have 
fully shown. 

The Edinburgh Review, for January, 1860, in an article 
on British Taxation, states, that at least three-fourths of 
the population of the United Kingdom belong to the 
working classes ; that is, to those who live by wages. By 
working classes in England is not meant those who are 
working, as in America, on their own farms, but who are 
hired in some form to capital — who live by wages. ' 

The present condition of these laborers, the people of 
England, is set forth by Joseph Kay, Esq., who was com- 
missioned by the Senate of Cambridge University, Eng- 
land, to travel through "Western Europe, to examine the 
comparative social condition of the poorer classes of the 
different countries. 

His chapters on England have lately been published by 
Harper & Brothers, and his statements will show us the 
condition of the people of England, and from this it is 
easy to understand both the strength and the weakness of 
Great Britain, and know the real nature of that haughty 
power whose hostility we are compelled to meet. Of her 
twenty-nine millions of inhabitants, nearly twenty-two 
millions are hired laborers, and one appointed to investi- 
gate the subject has given us the results of his inquiry. 

The first facts relate to the rapid decrease of small 
farms, the increase of the large estates, and the effect 
which this produces upon the laboring classes. Mr. Kay 
says : 

" I was in "Westmoreland for some time, during the au- 
tumn of 1849, and I took great pains to discover the 
present condition of the last survivors of these small pro- 



862 ENGLAND — HER PRESENT CONDITION, POWER, ETC. 

priotors. I can not describe it better than by giving the 
Words of a gentleman of great intelligence and of con- 
servative principles, who is engaged in the management 
of some of the largest estates in "Westmoreland and Cum- 
berland. He resides in that part of the country, and is 
interested in opposing the system of peasant proprietors. 
There are obvious reasons why I can not mention this 
gentleman's name. He said to me: 

" ' The greater proprietors in this part of the country 
are buying up all the land they can get hold of, and in- 
cluding it in their settlements. "Whenever one of the 
small estates is put up for sale, the great proprietors out- 
bid the peasants, and purchase it at all costs. The conse- 
quence is, that, for some time past, the number of the small 
estates held by the peasants has been rapidly diminishing 
in all parts of the country. In a short time none of them 
will remain, but all will be merged in the great estates. 
"While this has been going on, the great landowners have 
been also increasing very considerably the size of the farms. 
The smaller farms have been united, in order to form great 
farms out of them. So that, not only is it becoming more 
and more difficult every day for a peasant to buy land in 
this part of the country, but it is also gradually becoming 
impossible for him to obtain even a leasehold farm. The 
consequence is, that the peasant's position, instead of bf- 
ing what it once was, one of hope, is gradually becoming 
one of despair. Unless a peasant emigrates, there is now 
no chance for him. It is impossible for him to rise above 
the peasant class. 

" ' All this I believe to be a great evil. I have lived all 
my life among these people, and I believe that the old 
system of small estates was one which did the greatest pos- 
sible good to the peasants. It stimulated them to exertion, 
self-denial, and sobriety, by affording them a chance of 
obtaining a farm of their own ; and, when they had ob- 
tained one, it made them interested in the careful cultiva- 
tion of the soil, in the preservation of public order, and 
in the general prosperity of the country. 



ENGLAND — IIER PRESENT CONDITION, POWER, ETC. 863 

" ' Besides all this, the situation and duties of a small 
landowner were in themselves an excellent education to 
the small proprietor. He had many things to do and 
think of, with reference to county rates, poor rates, police, 
markets, agriculture, the effects of national proceedings on 
prices and on taxation, and the seasons. All this was as 
interesting to the peasants, and as improving to them, as 
it is to our country gentlemen, and it made up, in great 
measure, for the want of good schools and good instruc- 
tion. But all the effect of this education of circumstance 
is now being done away. The situation of the peasant is 
becoming one void of hope, and of all improving influ- 
ences whatever.' 

" As the Rev. Henry Worsley says : ' The laborer's hope 
of rising in the world is a forlorn one. There is no grad- 
uated ascent up which the hardy aspirant may toil step by 
step with patient drudgery. Several rounds in the ladder 
are broken away and gone. A farm of some hundred 
acres, requiring for their due cultivation a large capital, 
would be a day-dream too gaudy ever to mix itself with 
the visions of the most ambitious laborer, earning, on an 
average, probably less than nine shillings a week. The 
agricultural workman's horizon is bounded by the high 
red-brick walls of the union-house : his virtual marriage 
settlement can only point to such a refuge if troubles 
arise : his old age may there have to seek it« last shelter.'* 

" What is the effect of all this ? Why, that the millions 
in England and Wales fancy that they have nothing to 
lose and every thing to gain by political changes, and that, 
instead of our institutions being based upon the conserva- 
tism of the masses, they are only based upon the conserv- 
atism of the few. So that we have really much more 
reason than any other country to dread the growth of 
democracy. 

"Besides the depressing and demoralizing effect of our 
system of monopoly of land upon the peasants, another 

* Essay on Juvenile Depravity, p. 54. 



364 ENGLAND — HER PRESENT CONDITION, POWER, ETC. 

great evil which results from our English system of great 
and few farms, and great and few estates, is, that it drives 
vast numbers of the young peasants, and of the younger 
sons of farmers, into the manufacturing towns, and, by 
overstocking their labor markets, renders it more and more 
difficult every year for the small shopkeepers and labor- 
ers of these towns to make a livelihood amid the ever- 
increasing competition around them. 

" Let us look this evil more fully in the face. An act- 
ive and enterprising son of a farmer sees that there is no 
chance of his ever getting a farm in his native parish, or 
of his ever purchasing or even renting a small plot of 
land, or of his ever rising above the rank of a farm la- 
borer, earning eight or nine shillings a week. The only 
opening left for such a young man, if he would climb 
above the lowest rank in the social scale — the peasant's 
position — is, either to go and seek his fortune in one of 
our colonies, or in one of our towns. There are many 
such young men, w r ho can not persuade themselves to 
break off the ties of home and kindred, and to leave their 
native country, but who feel compelled to leave their na- 
tive villages. All such crowd to the great manufacturing 
towns of England. The peasants go, to seek labor as 
operatives or artisans ; the sons of the farmers go, to en- 
deavor to establish shops or taverns. What is the result? 
The labor market in the manufacturing towns is con- 
stantly overstocked; the laborers and shopkeepers find 
new and eager competitors constantly added to the list; 
competition in the towns is rendered unnaturally intense, 
profits and wages are both unnaturally reduced ; the town 
work-houses and the town jails are crow T ded with inmates; 
the inhabitants are overburdened with rates, and the towns 
swarm with paupers and misery. 

" I know not what others may think:, but to me it is a 
sad and grievous spectacle, to see the enormous amount 
of vice and degraded misery which our towns exhibit, and 
then to think that we are doing all we can to foster and 
stimulate the growth and extension of this state of things 



ENGLAND — HER PRESENT CONDITION, POWER, ETC. 365 

by that system of laws which drives so many of the peas- 
ants of both England and Ireland to the towns, and in- 
creases the already vast mass of misery by so doing. 

" I speak with deliberation when I say, that I know no 
spectacle so degraded, and, if I may be allowed to nse a 
strong word, so horrible, as the back streets and suburbs 
of English and Irish towns, with their filthy inhabitants ; 
with their crowds of half-clad, filthy, and degraded chil- 
dren, playing in the dirty kennels ; with their numerous 
gin-palaces, filled with people, whose hands and faces show 
how their flesh is, so to speak, impregnated with spirit- 
uous liquors — the only solaces, poor creatures, that they 
have ! — and with poor young girls, whom a want of re- 
ligious training in their infancy, and misery, has driven to 
the most degraded and pitiful of all pursuits." 

The first result of such a state of affairs is sufficiently 
startling. In England and Wales alone, exclusive of Ire- 
land, there are two millions of paupers, and this number is 
continually increasing. The number of paupers in England 
and Wales is about one in eight of the whole population. 

Of the whole population of Great Britain and Ireland, 
about three millions are said to be paupers, or on the verge 
of pauperism. Certainly, it would seem that a country 
whose political system is reducing its laborers to the con- 
dition of serfs and paupers, can not have a perpetual lease 
of national existence in its present form. Its prosperity 
rests not on the welfare of the masses, but in the wealth 
of a class, whose riches have been wrung from the earn- 
ings of the many. 

The reader should bear in mind that the statements 
which follow are the results of a w r idely-extended official 
inquiry, and that they relate not to isolated cases, but to 
w T hole classes of laborers, and in all parts of the country, 
and presented, as they have been, from a great number of 
independent witnesses, may be received as representing cor- 
rectly the general condition of the working classes of Great 
Britain ; and it is hoped that the laboring people of this 



366 ENGLAND — HER PRESENT CONDITION, POWER, ETC. 

country will earnestly study this subject, and ponder these 
facts, and thus learn to value more than ever the free in- 
stitutions of our land, by which those who produce the 
wealth of the state are duly rewarded, instructed, and ele- 
vated, instead of being forced down by an aristocracy, as 
in England, to the condition of paupers and serfs, while 
bearing the empty name of freemen. The first question 
which it is proposed to consider is, 

Are the Laborers of Great Britain Educated? 

This question is thus answered, by the latest investiga- 
tions of Englishmen themselves, in statements copied from 
Mr. Kay's Report, who gives the authorities upon which 
he relies. 

" I will give a short summary of the present state of 
primary education in England and Wales, as collected from 
the reports of Her Majesty's Inspectors, of the Commission- 
ers of Inquiry in Wales, of the National Society, of the Sta- 
tistical Society, and of the city mission ; from Mr. Red- 
grave's reports from some very able articles in the North 
British Review, and from numerous personal inquiries in 
various parts of England and Wales : 

"1. It has been calculated that there are, at the present 
day, in England and Wales, nearly 8,000,000 persons who 
can not read and write. 

" 2. Of all the children in England and Wales, between 
the ages of five and fourteen, more than the half are not 
attending any school. 

" 3. Even of the class of the farmers, there are great 
numbers who can not read and write. 

" 4. Even of those children of the poor who have received 
some instruction, very few know any thing of geography, 
history, science, music, or drawing. Their instruction in 
the village schools has hitherto generally consisted of noth- 
ing more than a little practice in reading, writing, and 
Scripture history. 



ENGLAND — HER PRESENT CONDITION, POWER, ETC. 367 

" 5. Of the teachers who are officiating in many of the 
village schools, there are many who can not read and 
write correctly, and who know very little of the Bible, 
which they profess to explain to their scholars. 

" 6. A very great part of our present village and town- 
schools are managed by poor and miserably-instructed 
dames, who thus seek to make a livelihood, and who lit- 
erally do no good to the children, except it be keeping 
them, for a certain number of hours in the day, out of 
the dirt and out of worse society. 

" 7. Many of these dame-schools are so wretchedly man- 
aged, as to do the children a very great deal more harm 
than good — by uniting miserable associations with the 
sacred writings, and with the subjects of the wretched 
instruction given in these schools. 

" 8. Very many of our town-schools are held in small 
and unventilated cellars or garrets, where the health of the 
children is seriously impaired. 

" 9. If we except only the ivorst part of the dame-schools, 
we have not even then one-half as many school-buildings 
as we require for the present numbers of our population. 

" 10. By far the greatest part of our school-buildings 
have only one room, in which all the classes are instructed 
together, in the midst of noise and foul air. 

" 11. Many of our present school-rooms have no forms 
and no parallel desks — both of which are to be found in 
every school-room throughout Western Europe ; and in 
all such schools the children are kept standing the whole 
day. 

" 12. Very few of our school-rooms are properly supplied 
with maps, books, or school-apparatus. 

" 13. The majority of our town-schools have no play- 
grounds ; and, in all these cases, the children are turned 
out into the streets during the hours of recreation. 

" 14. Scarcely any schools throughout the country have 
more than two class-rooms ; the classification of the chil- 
dren is, therefore, very deficient, and the instruction is 
thereby much impaired. 



368 ENGLAND — HER PRESENT CONDITION, POWER, ETC. 

"15. Very few schools have more than one teacher. 

" 16. Great numbers of parishes and districts throughout 
England and Wales have no school-room at all, and no 
place in which their children can be instructed. 

" 17. Of these latter districts, many are too poor or too 
careless to raise any thing toward the erection of school- 
buildings ; and in none of these cases does the Commit- 
tee of Council give any assistance. 

" 18. In many other districts, the inhabitants are so di- 
vided in religious opinions, that they find it impossible to 
act in concert in providing for the education of their chil- 
dren ; and in these cases the Committee of Council renders 
no assistance. 

" 19. In most of our schools it is necessary, in order to 
provide salaries for the teacher and funds for the support 
of the school, to charge from 2d. to Ad. a week per head for 
the instruction of scholars. This absolutely excludes the 
children of all paupers, and of all poor persons, who can 
not afford to pay so much out of their small earnings ; 
while, throughout the greatest part of Western Europe, 
the education afforded in the primary schools is quite gra- 
tuitous. 

" 20. There is no public provision for the proper pay- 
ment and maintenance of our teachers, and these latter are, 
therefore, generally placed in so very humiliating and de- 
pendent a position, as in many cases virtually to prevent 
any man of ability and education from accepting such an 
office. 

"21. A great part of our village teachers are only poor, 
uneducated women, or poor men who are not fit for any 
other office or employment, and who are themselves miser- 
ably educated. 

" 22. In proportion to our population, we have scarcely 
one-fourth part as many colleges for the instruction of 
teachers as any of the countries of Western Europe, and 
not one-fourth part as many as are necessary for the edu- 
cation of a sufficient number of teachers for our poor. 

" 23. In nearly all the few colleges we have established 



ENGLAND — HER PRESENT CONDITION, POWER, ETC. 369 

for the instruction of teachers, the education is very lim- 
ited and meager in its character, as these colleges depend 
upon voluntary aid, and can not afford to give the students 
more than a year's or eighteen months' training; while 
throughout Western Europe the teachers receive three years' 
training in the teachers' colleges at the expense of the 
government. 

" 24. The colleges we have established are so poor that 
they can' not afford to support nearly so large and com- 
plete a staff of teachers and professors as are to be found 
in almost all the teachers' colleges throughout "Western 
Europe. 

" 25. A great part of our schools and teachers are never 
visited by any public inspector, or by any private person, 
or committee of persons, from the year's beginning to the 
year's end. In many of these cases, bad teachers are left 
to do great injury to their scholars, unchecked and unheard 
of; and, in many other cases, good and able teachers are 
left, without encouragement or advice, to labor on — un- 
known, disheartened, and alone. 

" 26. In most of our schools, owing to the teacher either 
not having been trained at all, or not having been edu- 
cated for a long enough time in a college, the methods of 
teaching are miserable and ridiculous. The noise in the 
school-rooms is often so great that it is with difficulty that 
any individual can make himself heard. The children are 
often kept standing the greater part of the day, and are 
wearied beyond endurance, so that the lessons, and all the 
associations connected with the subjects of instruction, are 
rendered hateful ever afterward. The highest religious 
subjects are thus often made odious to the children, who, 
during their after life, avoid as much as possible recurring 
to what awakens so many disagreeable recollections. In 
most of our schools there is little or no attempt to inter- 
est the children in their studies, or to teach them to think 
or reason. The instruction is mere parrot work. They 
are taught by rote, and forget again almost as soon as they 
have left the school. 

24 



370 ENGLAND — HER PRESENT CONDITION, POWER, ETC. 

Mr. Kay shows, from carefully collected facts, the results 
of such a system, and reveals an amount of poverty and 
wretchedness among the laboring classes almost beyond 
belief. It is not necessary to copy these sad and almost 
disgusting pictures, to show the real condition of England. 
Her power rests upon a peasantry without homes, or lands, 
or education, and, therefore, her whole political structure 
tends towards decay and ruin. Such men as Bright and 
Cobden have long foreseen this, and, with whole-hearted 
devotion to the cause of the people, have used their great 
talents to save their country by educating and elevating its 
laborers. 

But all these efforts have thus far been successfully re- 
sisted by those who have seized for themselves the offices, 
the lands, the wealth, the productive power of the state, 
while the producers of this wealth are held in the igno- 
rance, poverty, and degradation which England's own wit- 
nesses describe. 

Such is the condition of the great mass of the people of 
England. These are the elements of her future progress, 
and this is the result, for the laboring classes, of her boasted 
civilization. Her social system, in some main features, is 
the exact parallel of our Southern slave system. In both, 
the lands are all in the hands of a few aristocrats, lords of 
the land; in both, this small class of capitalists and land- 
owners seize for themselves nearly all the earnings of the 
workers, they becoming enormously rich, and the laborers 
crushed down in ignorance and poverty. It need not sur- 
prise us that the English aristocracy should wish success for 
the aristocrats of the South. This, too, is the country, 
whose grave writers, in stately quarterlies, declare that, if 
an American nation should spread its farms and schools, its 
printing-presses and Churches, the whole glorious structure 
of our free Christian civilization, over this continent, God 
would undoubtedly come down for our overthrow. And 
this embodies about the average wisdom that England has 
manifested in regard to American affairs. 



ENGLAND — HER PRESENT CONDITION, POWER, ETC. 371 

The condition of the laborers of Great Britain, as thus 
presented by English witnesses, furnishes a lesson which 
Americans should carefully study. It shows us that the 
abolition of slavery is only one step in our great social 
and political revolution ; and that there can be no broad 
and permanent basis laid for national prosperity, and no 
security for the masses, unless the working population are 
landowners. The laborers must own their own homes, as 
the general rule, or their condition will be but little above 
that of the slave or serf, though nominally invested with 
the rights of freemen. 

The laboring classes of England are free, but, with the 
single exception that they are not chattels, how near does 
the showing of their own countrymen place them to the 
condition of the slave! In morality and intelligence, in 
the manner in which they are housed and fed, there is by 
no means the wide difference which, we once thought be- 
tween the agricultural laborers of England and Wales, and 
the slaves on the grain-farms of the South. It shows, in 
the most conclusive manner, that wherever the lands of a 
country are in the hands of a few, and beyond the reach 
of the workers, nothing can save the laboring classes from 
degradation, poverty, ignorance, and oppression. Unless 
there can be. a land reform for England, unless the pro- 
cess can be arrested by which the small farms are swal- 
lowed up by the large estates, it is evident that those 
who produce the wealth of England must sink ever lower, 
till nothing is left them but such food, raiment, and shel- 
ter as fit a human beast. 

This is all that capital and selfishness have left the la- 
borer anywhere when free to oppress, and the English 
landowner is no worse than the American planter on his 
great estate, and no better. The fault is in the system; a 
landless peasantry in any country, in any age, have been, 
are, and ever will be, either slaves or serfs, or but a single 
grade above these, when the great estate system has 
reached its ultimate result. 

Let Americans then ponder and act upon the lesson, and, 



372 ENGLAND — HER PRESENT CONDITION, POWER, ETC. 

in the reconstruction of the nation, insist npon planting 
our workers upon homes of their own, and then give each 
a rifle and a ballot wherewith to defend them, taking care 
meanwhile that the free school imparts the needed intelli- 
gence. Then shall we have, indeed, an American nation 
of freemen, placed on an immovable basis, and capable of 
indefinite growth. These statements of the social condi- 
tion of England place in a new and equally clear light 
the necessity of her policy, and the cause of her hostility 
to Russia and America. She must control the manufac- 
tures and commerce of the world ; she must be the great 
money power of earth, or she must decline ; and she sees 
that, if Russia and America are allowed to grow on un- 
checked, she must soon hold an inferior position, and 
hence her hostility to both. 

Let no one, however, suppose that, because such is the 
condition of her working population, England is, there- 
fore, weak. On the contrary, she is a mighty power, a 
most formidable enemy. She is strong, because, having 
wrung all wealth from her laborers and concentrated it in 
the hands of a few, it is readily available for the purposes 
of the Government, and, through her thousand ships, may 
be used to strike a blow at any time in any quarter of the 
globe. She is strong for the same reason that Jeff. Davis 
is strong, when, crushing all opposition, and all individual 
rights, he seizes all men for his army, and all the wealth 
of the country to arm, and clothe, and feed them. 

Though she holds within the seeds of revolution or de- 
cay, for the present, she has at her disposal enormous 
power wherewith to defend herself or injure others. 

It is well, therefore, for Americans at this time to study 
the military power of England. The following tables are 
copied from an article in the North British Review for 
August, 1863, on the national defenses of Great Britain. 
The writer gives his authority for statements made, show- 
ing them to be official, and they may, therefore, be received 
as an authentic account of the land forces of England 
only six months since. The article is intended to quiet the 



ENGLAND — HER PRESENT CONDITION, POWER, ETC. 373 

fears of the English people in regard to a possible inva- 
sion from France, a dread of which hangs like a shadow 
over Britain. Of course, the national defenses are pre- 
sented in their most favorable aspect, and Americans will 
see from this statement how much or how little we have 
to fear from English armies. 

Strength of British Land Forces at Home and Abroad. 



Asia (exclusive of India and China), 

China, .... 

West Indies, etc., 

Bermuda, 

Bahamas, . 

North America, 

Australia, . 

New Zealand, 

Falkland Isles, . 

St. Helena, . 

West Africa, 

Cape of Good Hope, 

Corfu, 

Malta, .... 

Gibraltar, . 



Total in Colonies (excluding India). 
Regular Troops in United Kingdom, 

Total Regular Troops at Home and 

Abroad, ..... 
Militia Establishments, 

Total Regular and Militia Forces in 
United Kingdom, . 

General Total Paid Troops at Home 
and in Colonies (excluding India), 



6,724 



10,242 

473 1 

4 y 194 
490 



344 



6,490 
4,586 



39,543 

78,426 



117,969 
110,556 



188,982 



228,525 



4,355 



4,225 
1,102 

424 

4,329 

1,250 

3,626 

35 

676 
1,001 
4,840 
4,256 
7,112 
5,913 



43,144 
100,218 



143,362 
120,000 



220,218 



283,362 



3,826 
4,359 

24,389 

1,234 

5,538 

2,514 

4,719 

17,008 



63,587 
84,655 



148,242 
140,000 



222.655 



288,242 



Increase 
1805 to 1863. 



} 1,461 



3,480 

744 

5,538 

2,170 

4,719 

4,256 

622 

1,327 



24,044 
6,229 



30,273 

29,444 



33,673 



59,717 



" These results are, it must be admitted, sufficiently 
startling. They show that we are now, according to offi- 
cial returns, maintaining a force of 6,000 regulars in this 
kingdom, and of 24,000 regulars in our colonies (exclusive 
in both cases of India), beyond what we considered, and 
found, sufficient for our security when the French eagles 
were hovering in the air overhead, poising themselves for 
their swoop. In another view, they show that, were we 



374 ENGLAND — HER PRESENT CONDITION, POWER, ETC. 

still to retain the same force of regulars and militia together 
that we had in 1805 in these islands, we might neverthe- 
less dispatch to-morrow an expedition of 33,000 men, with- 
out recruiting a man beyond our present strength, and 
which would be over and above the war establishment of 
18,000 men whom we at present have in Canada." 

The conclusion is, that England can, in the opinion of 
the writer, spare about 33,000 men for foreign service, and 
maintain her home defenses. This is her full, actual power 
for foreign war, as tested in the Crimea. 

The idea of an English army on American soil needs not 
a second thought. "Whether French and English troops 
may threaten us from Mexico, is a question to be settled 
hereafter. When that issue is presented, Europe will prob- 
ably discover that the Monroe doctrine is not a dead letter 
in America. 

But the English navy, as well as that of France, consti- 
tutes a power quite different from the army, and the ques- 
tion, whether we are able to meet this force upon the sea, i8 
a very serious one, involving our national safety. 

It is so, because every movement of France and England, 
after their alliance was formed, and every indication of 
their spirit and policy since the failure of the rebellion, 
show that the purposes of the alliance against the United 
States are by no means abandoned. France is still actively 
engaged in Mexico, in operations whose direct object is to 
cripple the American power, while England only waits for 
a new opportunity to strike. The sentiment expressed by 
a distinguished English clergyman, that we were becoming 
so strong that it was necessary to put us down, has lately 
been repeated, in substance, by Mr. Roebuck, a member of 
Parliament, who confesses that his persistent efforts to aid 
the rebels were caused by his fear of the power of the Re- 
public, and his desire to stop our national growth. He felt 
that the expression of such a sentiment would justify his 
course in the opinion of an English audience. In the main 
he was right. Such fears and such desires form, to-day, the 



ENGLAND HER PRESENT CONDITION, POWER, ETC. 375 

ruling sentiment of England, and they have been intensi- 
fied by the unexpected issue of our war. 

It would be pleasant to believe, as many would persuade 
us to do, that this spirit is confined to a few individuals, 
while the nation, as a whole, cherishes towards us a kindly 
feeling, which, by a proper course on our part, may be 
ripened into a permanent friendship. It would be a very 
grave mistake if the people of this country should be 
thrown off their guard, and lulled into a false security, by 
the well-meant but mistaken efforts of those who would 
have us believe that England or France are now, or will be 
soon, our friends. A few platform speeches and dramatic 
exhibitions of generous forgiveness and friendship prove 
nothing, and effect nothing. Great national interests are 
all unchanged by these. For beneath all this surface-show, 
the broad, deep sea-currents of national policy sweep on 
with undiminished force. No Christian man, no true 
statesman, would desire Americans to cherish an unforgiv- 
ing or revengeful spirit towards England, but so long as no 
one can point to a single friendly act on the part of the 
British Government, it is not safe for us to forget that by 
England's act the ocean has been lighted up with the glare 
of our burning vessels, and that our whole territory is spot- 
ted with blood shed by British weapons. "When England 
repents, and makes restitution, so far as she can, it will be 
our duty to forgive. 

England and France will remain hostile to this Republic, 
and will continue their plotting for its overthrow, until they 
themselves are revolutionized. This is a necessity of their 
position and policy, as will appear from the following 
propositions, which it is believed no thoughtful man will 
dispute. Steam navigation has brought Europe and the 
United States so nearly in contact, that their influence 
upon each other is far more direct and powerful now than 
ever before, and every day is adding to its strength. The 
antagonism between the political institutions of Western 
Europe and those of our own country is direct and active, 
and, as the ultimate result, one system must displace the 



376 ENGLAND — HER PRESENT CONDITION, POWER, ETC. 

other. Therefore, either the progress of this Republic 
must be checked, or the people of France and England 
will sweep the throne and the aristocracy away. It was 
perfectly understood and openly declared, in Europe, that 
the South was jtiorhtiiisr their battle as well as its own, and 
this was true. We have conquered on our own soil only 
to have the field of conflict enlarged, and the great struggle 
for popular rights and free institutions will be renewed be- 
tween Europe and America — a struggle which can not end 
until freedom for the masses is won in Europe, or the mon- 
archical form of government is established here. What the 
form or the field of battle may be, can not now be certainly 
known ; but the antagonism is real, and it admits of no 
friendship and no stable or reliable peace. 

Again, the commercial and the manufacturing power of 
the United States must be crippled, or England will soon 
find a rival that she can not compete with, either on the 
seas or in the markets of the world. This she knows full 
well, and she will repeat her late outrages upon our com- 
merce whenever the opportunity shall come. Once more: 
if our Protestant free institutions are not checked, then 
Louis Napoleon can not " restore the prestige of the Latin 
race" on this continent, and he has declared this to be a 
main feature of his policy, the real purpose for which he 
invaded Mexico. The great antagonistic forces which con- 
trol the modern world, and that must shape the future, are 
represented on the one hand by Western Europe and on 
the other by the United States. These hostile forces are 
monarchical and aristocratic institutions and this free lie-' 
public; the Papal power and French ambition on the one 
hand, and free Protestant institutions on the other, both 
seeking to control this continent, and English capital and 
English pride determined, if possible, to arrest our com- 
mercial and manufacturing growth. 

All these antagonisms existed before the rebellion; they 
formed the basis of the Anglo-French Alliance, intended 
first for Russia, and secondly for us, and they have only 
been strengthened by the successful close of our war. 



ENGLAND HER PRESENT CONDITION, POWER, ETC. 377 

The rebellion was seized upon by France and England as 
the means of ruining us without a direct war. The South, 
as they truly said, was fighting their battle, and that con- 
flict, bloody as it was, was only preliminary to the final 
struggle which is to determine the fate of free institutions 
and the destiny of this continent. All indications now 
point to Mexico as the proba,ble field where this next and 
final battle will begin. 

Such is the vast and pressing importance of this subject, 
that at the' risk of a slight repetition, and also of antici- 
pating a little of what will more properly be discussed un- 
der the head of " The Monroe Doctrine," it is proposed to 
treat it here, more at length, in the new light afforded by 
the close of the war. 

The conspiracy of England and France against our Re- 
public, and the overthrow of the rebellion, have placed us 
in new relations to the world. "We can no longer pursue a 
separate career. "We find ourselves brought within the 
sweep of European politics. We have become one of the 
foremost powers of earth, one of the great forces which 
must control the destinies of the nations. No European 
policy can be shaped hereafter without reference to us, 
without at least considering how it will affect the United 
States, and we must accept the perils and responsibilities of 
the new position. 

From the new and higher ground which we occupy since 
the close of the war, the real purposes of France and Eng- 
land appear more distinctly, we can better understand the 
mission of our nation, and we can see more clearly the 
perils of our future. The remainder of this chapter will, 
therefore, be devoted first to a consideration of the Na- 
tional Mission of our Republic, then to a brief restatement 
of the policy of the Foreign Conspirators, showing that it 
is still unchanged, and to set forth the means by which 
they yet hope to succeed. 

Whoever believes in a God, who controls the affairs of 
the world — the God of Nations — will receive as true the 
declaration of the Bible, that He assigns to each nation its 



378 ENGLAND — HER PRESENT CONDITION POWER, ETC. 

territory, and sets the bounds of its dominion. It is not 
often that a nation is granted at once full possession of all 
its allotted domain. It is rather planted as a germ of life 
upon its appointed field, where it is protected and cherished 
until, by natural growth, it displaces other occupants, and 
fills at length the land. 

The history of the Jewish nation presents a very clear 
example of the general method of God. He gave to Abra- 
ham, as founder of the new state, what may be properly 
called the title-deed to the national domain, and defined 
its boundaries. He himself dwelt in the land thus granted 
only as a sojourner, and it was not until some centuries 
after, in the time of Solomon, that full possession was ob- 
tained of the national territory. Gradually the native 
tribes were forced back by the advance of the more power- 
ful Hebrew life till the appointed limits were reached. 

Have we reason to believe that God has assigned to this 
American nation a definite territory as the theater of na- 
tional life? The form and relative position of the North 
American continent may, perhaps, help us to determine 
that question. If any one, with this subject in his mind, 
will look at the map of North America, and run his eye 
along its boundary from the Isthmus of Panama north- 
ward along the Alantic shore, till it reaches the Polar Seas, 
there crosses the continent to the Pacific, and then follow 
it down the long coast to Panama again, he will find him- 
self almost convinced, he scarce knows why, that the con- 
tinent is a territorial unit, and that it is destined to be 
the seat of one national power, the theater for the unfold- 
ing of one dominant national life. One can not fail to see 
that, if it be the design of God to establish a grand center 
of power, from which the blessings of an unfettered Gospel 
and popular institutions may go forth to mould Europe 
and regenerate Asia, that of all places of earth this conti- 
nent is the appropriate seat of such an empire, consecrated 
to Christianity and freedom. Grand as the proportions of 
the continent are, it is seen that its great divisions are parts 
of one whole, and diversified as it is in surface, climate, 



ENGLAND — HER PRESENT CONDITION, POWER, ETC. 379 

and productions, the diversity tends ever to unity. As one 
looks at this map, it seems only, according to the natural 
order of things, that the people occupying this continent 
should control the adjacent oceans and islands, and that, if 
they should embody in their institutions a true Christian 
life, they might become the great center of Christian civil- 
ization for the modern world. Nearly every thing which 
earth produces, that can minister to national growth and 
power, or to the comfort or luxury of the individual, this 
continent supplies; so that a united people dwelling here 
would have an independent and self-developing life-power, 
that could bind, securely and peacefully, hundreds of mill- 
ions in one grand national system. 

It is seen, also, that the main elements of national power 
are so located and so adjusted in relation to each other as 
to suggest that the continent is intended for the home of 
one undivided people. The great lakes and rivers seem to 
have been prepared for one system of internal commerce. 
The long coast-lines of either ocean are backed by corre- 
sponding hill and mountain-ranges, that furnish a basis for 
manufactures proportionate to the commercial power; the 
immense agricultural basins are so situated as -to furnish 
conveniently the needed food, and the exhaustless mineral 
wealth is sufficient to support the various industry of all 
the millions that can dwell in all the land. It is at least 
beyond dispute, that, if it was the intention of Him who 
created the continent so to locate and balance its agricul- 
tural, commercial, manufacturing, and mineral resources as 
to make it the fitting home of one vast national power, the 
design could not have been more completely carried out. 
National unity is stamped on every feature of the North 
American Continent. 

But if it were the design of God that one united people 
and one national life-power should control this continent, 
we should expect that in the two centuries since the seed 
of a nation was planted here, some clear evidence of such a 
design might be found in His Providential dealings with 



'to" i "'o' 



380 ENGLAND — HER PRESENT CONDITION, POWER, ETC. 

us, and in the direction which He has given to our national 
life. Is such evidence afforded by our history? 

No one will now dispute that there is in this country one 
dominant life-energy that shapes and directs all the forces 
and movements of the nation. Thus far, it has overborne 
and displaced every opposing power, and still it expands on 
every side with a force that shows no abatement, and seems 
capable of bringing the whole continent under its own ex- 
clusive control. The germ of this national life was evi- 
dently planted on the shores of the Atlantic, and New Eng- 
land has been the center of its development. But to call 
this the New England life, or to give it the wider name of 
Puritanism, is to narrow the idea and conceal its real na- 
ture. It is, indeed, the life of New England; it has given 
to those States the character and power they have, but it 
does not mould all material precisely after the New Eng- 
land type, and in the great Western valleys, and in the vast 
mountain regions west of the Mississippi, and on the shores 
of the Pacific, it may yet produce a nobler form of society 
and a higher type of mankind than New England can 
boast. 

The real life-power of this nation is the spirit of the 
Gospel, working in and through the forms of a true Chris- 
tian democracy, both in Church and in State. It is Chris- 
tianity embodied in free institutions for the elevation of all 
humanity. This is the true American national idea — the 
idea of a Christian democratic state securing equal rights to 
all men, and offering to every man the opportunity to be- 
come whatever God has given him the capacity to be. 

These ideas are the living, resistless forces which are 
subduing all things to themselves in this Western Hemi- 
sphere. From New England they went forth " conquering 
and to conquer." The national idea of equal rights for all, 
and universal Christian freedom, is the power which con- 
quered the rebellion. The moving forces of the rebellion 
were the aristocratic spirit of the South enslaving the labor, 
the hierarchical Church sympathizing more with spiritual 



ENGLAND — HER PRESENT CONDITION, POWER ETC. 381 

despotism than true democratic liberty, and that false 
democracy whose liberty is lawlessness, which hates every 
manifestation of the spirit of Christ, and which turned 
instinctively against the cause of the North, because its 
success would be a triumph of the principles of the Gospel. 

Over all these powerful enemies the true American na- 
tional idea, that of a real Christian democracy in Church 
and State, has obtained a signal victory, and this idea has 
become, by the issue of the war, the dominant one on the 
continent, and, unless speedily checked, must henceforth 
control its destiny. 

If these views are correct, we need make no mistake in 
regard to our national mission. It is to exhibit over all 
this continent the power of the Gospel when embodied in 
free institutions, and by the moral force of this illustrious 
example of Christian freedom, to impart to other nations 
its transforming power. 

If, as has been suggested, the great geographical features 
of the North American Continent indicate that He who 
created it designed it to be the seat of one national power, 
that purpose is shown still more clearly by the manner in 
which He has cherished, protected, and expanded with vig- 
orous growth the true American life, until, by its victory 
over all the powers that united in the rebellion, it has, be- 
yond all dispute, shown itself to be the master-force of this 
Western world. This idea of freedom for all classes and 
conditions of men is now the controlling one in our na- 
tional policy, and though some reactions may occur, they 
will not materially hinder the flow of the broad stream of 
progress. This same idea rules at length the American 
Church. Evidently, the aggressive force of American 
Christianity is in those organizations which are in closest 
sympathy with the people and popular institutions. The 
democratic Churches are already the leading ones in all that 
ministers to the progress of society, while the hierarchical 
spirit opposes and clings to what is passing away. 

Thus the American national idea has shaped at length a 
corresponding national policy, and that policy must here- 



382 ENGLAND — HER PRESENT CONDITION, POWER, ETC. 

after have reference to Europe, because the Powers of 
"Western Europe, having waited and hoped in vain for the 
dismembering of our Republic by the rebels, now that the 
rebel power has vanished, confront us directly, and forbid, 
even on our own continent, the further progress of the 
American Idea. This is the position in w 7 hich our country 
is placed at the close of the war. We discover that this 
was by no means an isolated event, but that it was one step 
in the w r orld's grand movement for the emancipation of 
humanity, of w T hich it has made our Republic now the 
acknowledged leader. The South has been stricken down, 
and forced aside, or into sullen submission; but w r e find that 
France has intrenched herself directly across our line of 
march, and England, in her very latest dispatches, takes 
occasion to remind us that she is still united with France 
in policy. 

In the hour when the rebel Confederacy fell, there stood 
before the world the true American Nation, armed and 
crowmed as the representative and champion of one of 
the three great religious ideas which control the nations. 
"We have now learned that before the war we had no w T ell- 
compacted political structure, and we know that it had no 
definite religious character or purpose. It is far otherwise 
now. We are a nation with great national aspirations, 
hopes, and powers. We have been fused into an insepa- 
rable unity by the fierce heat of the battle, and consecrated 
to our national work by the baptism of blood and tears. 
And now the power which moves us, and through which 
we have conquered, is a religious sentiment, and that sen- 
timent has also assumed a definite form. It is a Christian- 
ity which recognizes the manhood of all men; which de- 
, mands for all men equality of right before God and the 
law, and a fair field in which every one may work out for 
himself a social standing according to the faculty which is 
in him. This is now the central idea of the living, aggress- 
ive American Christianity, and the nation stands commit- 
ted to its propagation and defense. 

The term Protestantism does not correctly describe this 



ENGLAND — HER PRESENT CONDITION POWER, ETC. 383 

form of Christianity. It is more than Protestantism — a 
step in advance. It embraces and holds firmly the great 
Protestant doctrines, but it also does more than this. The 
power of the Reformation consisted in presenting- anew 
some of the cardinal doctrines of the ancient faith. Ameri- 
can Christianity accepts these, and then goes beyond, and 
embodies the principles of the Gospel in free, popular insti- 
tutions, and in the very spirit of Christ proposes to ennoble 
the whole humanity. The American nation thus occupies 
a position never held by a nation before. It stands the 
representative and champion of a true Christian democracy 
in Church and State, and demands the continent as the 
theater of its life. It opens a new era in the progress of 
humanity. 

Such being, as is believed, the true American national 
idea, and such our national mission, and as this national 
life, in its vigorous growth, tends to displace all else on the 
continent, the bearing of the past policy of France and 
England upon our Republic is more clearly seen. We un- 
derstand better the double meaning of the Crimean war; 
we see that the Anglo-French Alliance was formed against 
America as well as Russia; we perceive that in the aid 
given to the rebels and in the invasion of Mexico the 
Allies were only carrying out the original purpose of the 
Alliance to "put us down" on the first opportunity, and 
the real and necessary antagonism between our national 
system and purpose and that of Western Europe is set be- 
fore us in the clearest light. It is a hostility which admits 
of no thorough reconciliation, because it is an opposition 
of principles, a conflict of ruling ideas, an antagonism of 
the mightiest forces that ever act upon mind and shape the 
character and policy of nations. 

While intercourse with Europe was confined to the long, 
uncertain vo} T age of the sailing-vessel, these opposing pow- 
ers did not come into actual conflict; the ocean held them 
apart. But steam has now placed Europe and America 
Bide by side; and besides, Europe, through France, has 
planted her system on our own shores, and, for the same 



884 ENGLAND — HER PRESENT CONDITION, POWER, ETC. 

reason that the North and the South met in a struggle 
which could not end until one was subdued, America and 
Europe will meet for a contest in which the political sys- 
tem of one will certainly overthrow and displace the other. 

Whether this is to be a conflict of ideas alone, or one 
of arms, time only can decide ; but France has made the 
danger of war an imminent one by giving to the United 
States as insolent a challenge as was ever offered by one 
nation to another. 

While every Christian and true patriot would do all 
things consistent with national honor to avoid a war with 
England and France, or either of them, and while all would 
willingly believe that such a conflict may be avoided, com- 
mon prudence and a due regard to the safety of our nation 
require that Americans should study with, care the true 
nature of the hostility which moves these Powers against 
us. They should understand the elements of this active 
antagonism, and then they can judge whether the future 
will bring continued peace or a world-wide battle. 

First of all, and as the most important, it is proposed to 
present more fully a subject briefly touched upon in an 
opening chapter — the religious forces which are engaged 
in this conflict of the nations. In general, the great move- 
ments of the modern world are religious ones. Whoever 
would penetrate to the meaning of history, must search 
beneath the intrigues of diplomacy and the march of armies, 
and study the religious sentiment in which the surface agi- 
tations originated. The key to history, the cause of events, 
and the directing force will be found there. 

The fact, elsewhere stated, that the great political com- 
binations of Christendom are being shaped by the religious 
faith and traditions of the nations, is one of deep signifi- 
cance, and it is only by giving this due weight that we can 
perceive the true tendency of events, either in Europe or 
America. 

The Greek Church, the Papal Church, and the Protest- 
ant Faith divide the world between them. Races are 
separating from each other, and drawing around their own 



ENGLAND — HER PRESENT CONDITION, POWER, ETC. 385 

religious centers and leaders. The Sclavonians are rally- 
ing around Russia, the Latins draw toward France, the 
Protestants have been waiting for a leader, and before this 
topic is laid aside, it is proposed to inquire whether they 
have found one in the United States. 

But the fact that these three forms of religious faith are 
arranging the nations in three grand divisions, is not so im- 
portant as the new forms they have assumed, and the new 
and intenser life which they exhibit. The Greek and Pa- 
pal Churches have been antagonists for more than a thou- 
sand years. But after the fall of Constantinople, the Greek 
Church almost disappeared from public view and thought, 
and at the commencement of the Crimean war less was 
known in America of its character and condition than of 
the religions of India. Rome for a thousand years ruled 
all Western Europe, with none to dispute her power. But 
the check given her by the Reformation seemed for a time 
to wither up her life-energies. Is was thought that the 
blow given was a fatal one. The Protestant Powers be- 
came leaders among the nations. France for a time aban- 
doned the Church, and Russia became a first-class power. 
The Papacy, represented only by Italy, Spain, and Portugal, 
scarce exerted any perceptible influence upon the political 
movements of Europe. Those who deemed themselves 
^6i y*-*- wisestj-spoke of the Romish Church as already a thing of 
the past — an institution left behind in the world's progress, 
and soon to be seen no more. 

The Protestant faith, after having made sudden conquest 
of half of Europe, and far more than half of its wealth and 
power, seemed to have reached as suddenly the limits of 
its growth; it appeared to have expended its life-force. It 
ceased to make aggressions upon the Papacy, and infidelity 
and formalism attacked it within. It seemed in process of 
disintegration by the multiplication of sects, and it had 
neither unity of organization nor any positive character, nor 
any definite aim. It ceased to be an important recognized 
force in the great movements of nations. In our own coun- 
try the Protestant faith was scarcely thought of as an ele- 
25 



886 ENGLAND — HER PRESENT CONDITION, POWER, ETC. 

ment of power in our political organizations or national 
policy. The infidel philosopher believed that the time had 
come for the emancipation of the world from the thraldom 
of Religion, and that humanity would now reach perfec- 
tion by suitable political institutions and intellectual cul- 
ture. 

But this apparent inaction and weakness of the religious 
forces of Europe ended with the beginning of the Crimean 
war. That bloody conflict originated in the old animosity 
between the Eastern and "Western Churches. It was, in its 
deepest meaning, an attack of the Papacy upon the Greek 
Church — a struggle to regain the East by crippling Russia 
and giving the Allies control of the territory of the Old 
Eastern Empire and Church. 

When the war-cloud rolled away, the most important 
objects revealed were not the military power of France or 
the naval strength of England, nor shattered Sevastopol ; 
but there stood the Greek Church, which fell with Con- 
stantinople, risen to newness of life and power — the ani- 
mating soul, the life-power of colossal Russia, and that 
Russia simply checked, not broken or dismayed, but con- 
solidated by the pressure she had endured, and more than 
ever determined to win the beloved city and territory of 
her Mother Church. From that hour the Greek Church 
throughout Russia became one of the great forces of the 
modern world. In that hour, too, the Papal Church re- 
gained its old ascendency over Western Europe. France 
came home from the Crimea the military leader and impe- 
rial head of the Western nations ; England sunk to the 
second position. But France was also the acknowledged 
and victorious champion of the demands of the Papacy in 
its quarrel at Jerusalem, which led to the war with Russia. 
Then came the dash into Italy, the humbling of Austria, 
and France thus became the political leader of the Latin 
nations and virtual head of the Papal Church. Thus the 
Papal Church arose to almost its ancient power; and still 
animated by its old activity, zeal, and ambition, it turned 
from the Crimea to this Western Continent, and France 



ENGLAND — HER PRESENT CONDITION, POWER, ETC. 387 

landed in Mexico, with the openly-avowed intention of re- 
storing here the prestige and authority of the Latin race, 
in opposition to the Anglo-Saxon, and of checking the 
progress of our free institutions and the Protestant faith. 

Thus the tw T o great religious forces of Europe have reap- 
peared on the field, each more powerful than ever before, 
and animated by an intenser life. The one looks to the 
East as the field of her conquests; the other aims to control 
Western Europe and America, and to crush out Protestant 
institutions in both. Hence the conspiracy against our Re- 
public, of which the rebellion was only one branch, and 
that the least formidable one. 

France and England struck with as definite an aim and 
with a spirit quite as hostile as that of the Confederates 
themselves. The operations of France were more quiet 
than those of England. Outwardly she appeared more 
friendly, but on that account she has been, and still is, all 
the more dangerous foe. 

When the first pages of this work were written, and the 
religious condition of the world was mentioned, there was 
no sign of any reawakening of the Protestant life ; no indi- 
cation that among the nations some worthy leader of the 
Protestant movement would soon arise. Germany was 
without proper organization, and with no definite aim. 
England is in no sense a religious leader, and no great or 
noble idea enters into her national policy. The people of 
the United States were Protestant in theory and by tradi- 
tion, but in our national policy and acts scarce a trace ap- 
peared of any religious sentiment whatever. The Churches, 
in their subserviency to the slave-power and godless politi- 
cians, had suffered themselves to be excluded from nearly 
the whole field of human action. Taking little or no cog- 
nizance of public affairs, or even of private conduct con- 
nected with public political action, they ceased to be felt or 
recognized as a great power in the State, and the religious 
sentiment became separated from the political life of the 
nation. 

But the war was a stern and effective educator, and wide 



388 ENGLAND — HER PRESENT CONDITION, POWER, ETC. 

and radical changes were very rapidly wrought in the pub- 
lic mind. The disappointments and reverses, the fearful 
slaughter, filled the land with sorrow, apprehension, and 
awe. The nation was forced to remember God, and it was 
troubled with a consciousness of his avenging presence. 
The religious sentiment was quickened and deepened. The 
manner in which our successes and reverses were connected 
with our treatment of the blacks, the evident hinging of 
the whole conflict upon the question of slavery and emanci- 
pation, showed to all the sin for which God was judging us 
too plainly to be mistaken ; and from the Chief Magistrate 
downward there was repentance toward God and man. 
The Churches were disinthralled, and ranged themselves on 
the side of justice and humanity; they assumed again their 
rightful position as teachers and guides of the people; they 
pressed home what were called radical truths upon the 
heart and conscience ; but these radical truths were only the 
principles announced by Christ, and applied, as he intended 
they should be, to human action. 

The authority of God, and the dependence of the nation 
upon his favor, were humbly acknowledged in State papers 
and the addresses of public men ; a religious motto was 
adopted for our national -coin, and the United States as- 
sumed the position and adopted the language of a Chris- 
tian State. 

The religious sentiment thus awakened became a new 
power in the nation, and one mightier than all the rest. 
"When once it had taken possession of the people, suc- 
cess was certain ; for it commanded easily all possible re- 
sources. No one now should doubt that the war was carried 
to a successful issue by the power of the most radical ideas. 
To those fundamental religious principles the nation now 
stands committed; and these are simply the principles of 
Christ, applied as a rule of action, both for the individual 
and the nation, and the United States stands now before 
the nations as the great exemplar of a true Christian De- 
mocracy, an expression of a form of Christian faith, far 
in advance of the Reformation. 



ENGLAND — HER PRESENT CONDITION, POWER, ETC. 389 

Although, then, we have no national Church, yet, as a 
religious sentiment now controls the nation — a sentiment 
that finds its natural expression in free institutions, and in 
the education and elevation of the laboring masses — it may 
be truly said that this Gospel, which proclaims freedom and 
equal rights and education for the whole humanity, stands 
now before the world embodied in the institutions of one of 
the foremost Powers of earth. To this Christianity, this 
form of faith, the American nation will henceforth hold as 
close a relation as Russia does to the Greek Church, or as 
the Latin nations to the Church of Rome. This, as has 
been stated, will be without a national Church ; but this 
particular religious sentiment, which has gained us the vic- 
tory over the rebellion, will henceforth strengthen with the 
growth of the nation ; and although there will be no State 
establishments, there will be an American form of Chris- 
tianity. 

This being granted, the all-important fact at once presents 
itself, that this new form of faith animating our political 
bo(l} r stands at every point the direct and irreconcilable an- 
tagonist of the Papal Church, and every other form of spir- 
itual and political despotism. From the very necessity of 
its nature, it presents itself among the nations as the Lib- 
erator of humanity. 

Nor does this involve any idea of spreading our faith, or 
extending our political system, by any invasion of the rights 
or territory of theirs. America proposes no attack upon 
European nations. She is quite willing to restrict herself 
to the quiet influence of her example and the power of 
truth. She proposes no invasion of the possessions of an- 
other power, even on this continent ; but when a European 
monarch plants himself on our border, with the declared 
intention of arresting even our peaceful progress, it becomes 
then a matter of urgent necessity to consult our national 
safety. 

It appears, then, that the Greek or Russian Church, the 
Church of Rome, and American Christianity are the relig- 
ious forces which now divide the world between them, and 



390 ENGLAND — IIER PRESENT CONDITION, POWER, ETC. 

that between the Greek Church and the Papacy, and also 
between our American faith and the Papal Church, there is 
irreconcilable opposition. The peace of the future depends, 
therefore, upon the question whether either of these will 
change its principles or abandon its purposes; for if not, 
then beyond all dispute the future will bring us not peace, 
but a conflict, whether of arms or ideas only no one now 
can certainly tell. This question it is well to consider. 



THE THREE GREAT RELIGIOUS FORCES. 391 



CHAPTER XXXIV. 



WILL THE THREE GREAT RELIGIOUS FORCES ALREADY NAMED ACT SEPA- 
RATELY OR HARMONIOUSLY HEREAFTER, OR WILL THEY COME INTO COL- 
LISION V 



In order to answer this question, we must consider the 
direction in which these forces are acting' now, and the 
spirit and policy of the nations which these forces control. 

Since Russia took her place among the nations as one 
of the great Powers of Europe, her policy has heen shaped 
by one central idea — to recover the old Greek Empire from 
the grasp of the Turk, to possess herself of Constantinople, 
and thus extend the Greek Church again over its ancient 
territory. Toward this end every great movement of the 
Russian Government has tended. Her acquisitions of ter- 
ritory, her fortifications and fleets on the Black Sea and on 
the Caspian, her war in the Caucasus, her treaties with and 
her movements upon Persia — all look toward this one 
great purpose. No threats, no acts of diplomacy, no force 
has availed to turn her from her path. She has braved the 
combined strength of France and England in the pursuit 
of her object, and she is quite ready to do it again if occa- 
sion requires. She can not and will not abandon the na- 
tional idea. The heart and eye of the whole nation are 
fixed on Constantinople and the East. All over the empire 
it is regarded as the fixed destiny of Russia to deliver the 
Ottoman Power, and to occupy and hold Constantinople. 

It may, probably, be safely said that an emperor who 
should discard this policy would be regarded as having 
proved false to his country, and would be dethroned. It 



392 THE THREE GREAT RELIGIOUS FORCES. 

may be regarded, then, as settled, that the traditional policy 
of Russia will not be abandoned, and she will persevere, at 
all hazards, in the design to establish the Greek Church at 
Constantinople, and to spread her religious and political 
influence over the East. But at Constantinople, not the 
Turk alone, but France and England stand, as heretofore, 
across her path. Russia will not yield. Will France and 
England permit her peaceful progress? Let the reader 
consider the attitude of France and the Papal Church, and 
the question will be answered in regard to them. 

In all lands the Romish Church, as has been stated, 
manifests a new activity, ambition, and zeal ; she exhibits 
fresh confidence in her old idea of subjugating the world. 
This reawakening dates back now somewhat more than a 
quarter of a century, about the time of her first serious 
attempts to establish herself on a large scale within the 
United States. 

At no period since the Reformation has the Roman 
Catholic Church been so confident of bringing the world 
uuder her control as now. She is making unwearied ef- 
forts to plant herself in every position of influence which 
by any possibility she can bring within her reach ; and ex- 
ternally she seems to be making progress every-where. 

They who turn to the Pope and Italy for the purpose of 
measuring the power of the Catholic Church, will be en- 
tirely misled. The Pope, it may be, is of small account in 
the policies of Europe ; and the Romish Church, as ex- 
hibited at Rome, may appear like a weak and contemptible 
burlesque upon Christianity — an organization rotten at 
heart and ready to vanish away. But let him who would 
understand the Papal Church of to-day, who would study 
its designs and gauge its strength, turn to Paris, and he 
will see in Louis Napoleon the real head of the Papacy, 
and wielding for its support the combined power of the 
Latin nations of Europe. 

The Emperor of France is no religious enthusiast ; the 
idea of winning the world for Christ is no part of hia 
scheme. He is plotting merely for the political advance- 



THE THREE GREAT RELIGIOUS FORCES. 393 

ment of France ; he holds ever in his mind's eje the 
restoration of the Empire of Charlemagne, the placing 
France at the head of Europe. He sees in the Catholic 
Church, as he believes, the means of success, and he seeks 
to extend its power in all lands, because he thus increases 
his own. The leaders of the Church, on the other hand, 
are delighted to find the nations of Europe organizing for 
their support, and this double power is going forth, as they 
confidently expect, to the conquest of earth. 

This view of the subject will show that neither France 
nor the Papal Church will pause in its course. Like Rus- 
sia, they are following out a traditional policy ; and, like her, 
France has brought the power of the religious sentiment 
of an immense population to support her political ambi- 
tion. 

France knows well that she is mistress of Western Eu- 
rope. She knows that England, so far from having the 
power to oppose her, has reached the point where her only 
privilege is to state that she heartily agrees with France. 

^Nothing, then, seems more certain than that France and 
the Papacy will go steadily, strongly, confidently forward 
in their scheme for the aggrandizement of France and the 
Church. 

At Constantinople, and on the shores of the Black Sea, 
France and the Papacy must cross the path of Russia and the 
Greek Church, and the shock of that next collision is likely 
to shake all Europe. With that contest we hope to have 
no direct connection. But France has seen fit, with a most 
insulting declaration of her purpose, to prepare on our own 
continent a place where she must inevitably meet in hos- 
tility the progress of our Protestant life. By planting it- 
self in Mexico, this double-headed French-Papal power has 
placed itself in front of our advancing civilization, and 
says to the United States, "At the point where you now 
are your progress must be stopped, and from that point you 
shall now retreat, for I intend to restore the prestige of the 
Latin race on this Western continent." By this move- 
ment — made on the assumption that the rebellion would 



394 THE THREE GREAT RELIGIOUS FORCES. 

certainly succeed — the French Emperor has placed the two 
countries where one or the other must yield or retreat. If 
Louis Napoleon abandons his purpose, it will be the first 
time in his history ; if the Papacy retreats, it will do what 
as yet it never has done ; and to yield in Mexico would be 
for Napoleon and the leaders of the Papacy to give up one 
of the main ideas, the principal plot of the Romish Church 
and the French Emperor — one which, more than any other, 
has occupied their thoughts — the reconquest of the West- 
ern continent for monarchy and Romanism. 

What, then, of England in this threatening future ? So 
long as the alliance lasts, she is simply a tender to France, 
as much as the Deerhound was to the Alabama. She will 
be most happy to announce that she acts in concert with 
France, her policy being the same ; and nothing would re- 
joice the leading spirits of England more than an oppor- 
tunity of striking a successful blow at the United States 
for any cause which could be made to appear justifiable be- 
fore the world. People may please themselves by talking 
of the friendly spirit of the English people, but they should 
remember that a successful war against the United States, 
for any cause, would be cheered and supported and gloried 
in by the almost universal population of England. To this 
threatening fact our statesmen can not safely close their eyes 
for a single moment. We need cherish no hatred, no bit- 
terness toward England ; we may study the things that 
make for peace, so far as self-respect or prudence will per- 
mit ; but let us never be unprepared for war, and a war 
that may bring against us all Western Europe. 

The only remaining question is, will the new-born Amer- 
ican nation pause on the very threshold of the new era 
upon which it has entered ? Will it yield the great cause 
of Republican institutions on this continent, and timidly 
retreat at the insolent command of a foreign power that 
has forcibly, and against the will of the people, seized on 
Mexico, and overturned her government, and announces 
itself to be the barrier to our further progress ? 

To believe this is to believe that American pride, self- 



THE THREE GREAT RELIGIOUS FORCES. 395 

respect, love of free institutions, and regard for national 
houor have all perished together. It would be to believe 
that we are insensible to, or that we feel ourselves too 
weak to avenge, the scornful insult which France has given 
us by the seizure of Mexico, and by the purpose which she 
has avowed. 

Nothing of all this is true. On the contrary, this robust 
American free life, this force of a true Democratic Chris- 
tianity, will move on with resistless growth to the peaceful 
occupation of its whole dominion, if other nations permit 
this ; but if not, then it will be supported by a million of 
men in arms, and a thousand ships or more, if needed; 
and whatever improperly opposes will be swept away. Not 
France alone, nor all Western Europe with her, will be al- 
lowed to dictate to this nation where its territorial limits 
shall be. 

In view, then, of the probable future, it becomes a mat- 
ter of deep interest for Americans to study the character 
and strength of our navy as compared with the navies of 
Europe. To this subject some of the following chapters 
will be devoted. 



396 NAVIES OF ENGLAND, FRANCE, AMERICA, AND RUSSIA. 



CHAPTER XXXV. 



THE NAVIES OF ENGLAND, FRANCE, AMERICA, AND RUSSIA. 

Many varying newspaper reports of the strength of the 
navies of Europe have "been spread abroad. The follow- 
ing statement of the condition of the English and French 
navies is copied from the North British Review, for Au- 
gust, 1863. 

The writer gives the following in a foot-note as his 
authority : " The figures for England are from a Return 
to the House of Commons, 1863, No. 30 ; for France, 
from the official statement for 1862, transmitted by our 
(the English) embassador, (Parliamentary Pap., 1862, No. 
177)." 

This table is worthly of especial study. It presents the 
latest official statement of the actual condition of the Eng- 
lish iron-clad navy, and from it we are able to form a 
correct estimate of the force with which England supposes 
she can blockade our ports and crush our navy. It shows 
us exactly the character, the size, form, and armament of 
her most formidable ships, and in which her power, skill, 
and science are all concentrated. They are, doubtless, 
among the most powerful broadside vessels in the world, 
and, perhaps, would find no equal among ships of that 
class unless in our own New Ironsides, whose armament 
is much heavier than theirs. Whether they are a match 
for our Monitors is a question to be considered. 



NAVIES OP ENGLAND, FRANCE, AMERICA, AND RUSSIA. 397 

The account, we are informed, includes vessels afloat and 
building : 



















• 






























(I'd 


£& 






:§ Bt 


5 <D 


p. 


s 


~ £ 


- si 


























E « 




Wj£ 


*SJ 


fcS 


h « 


M u 


-.c 


o § 


£3 




< R 


h^X! 


fc JJ 


&* 


033 

o 


6~ 


s 


6 




CO 


England, 


21 


59 


44 


16 


30 




9 


380 


566 


103 




16 


37 


29 


18 


7 


9 




244 


360 


122 



" At Kinburn the French Emperor proved that iron-clad 
batteries could, without injury, sustain a fire which would 
be utterly destructive to wooden vessels. He pursued the 
conclusions thus arrived at, and finally, in 1858, ordered 
the construction of four iron-plated frigates — La Gloire, 
L'Invincible, La ISTormandie, and La Couronne. The first 
three are on wood frames ; the latter is iron throughout. 
They are about two hundred and thirty-one feet in length, 
carrying thirty-six 50-pounders on a single protected deck, 
with two more on an upper deck, unprotected. Their 
engines are of nine hundred horse power, and the crew 
five hundred and seventy men. All these are at sea, and 
nave been found successful ; but the ports being only about 
six feet above the water when at load draught, they are 
placed at a certain disadvantage in bad weather. Subse- 
quently two others, the Solferino and Magenta, were 
ordered, which have been launched, but are not yet com- 
pleted. They are armed with a ' spur,' projecting from 
the bow, carry their guns in two tiers in the center of the 
ship, and the lower ports are eight feet from the water-line. 
Their length is two hundred and eighty-two feet ; draught, 
twenty -five feet ; and horse-power, one thousand. 

" In November, 1860, ten more were ordered, which are 
still on the stocks, and are being slowly proceeded with. 
They are to be of the Gloire type, and all of wood frames, 
except the Heroine, which is of iron ; but the thickness 
of the plates has been increased from three and a half to 
four inches of the Gloire, to four and a half to six inches. 



398 NAVIES OF ENGLAND, FRANCE, AMERICA, AND RUSSIA. 

All the other iron-plated vessels under construction in 
France at the present moment are merely floating batteriea 
for harbor defense. 

" Our own armor fleet, though more tardily commenced, 
now stands thus : 





Hull. 


Armor- 
plated. 


Tuns. 


Horse 
Power. 


Length. 


Draught. 


Guns 


Men. 


At Sea. 










feet. 


feet. in. 






Warrior, . . . 


Iron. 


Partially. 


6,109 


1,250 


380 


22 9 


40 


704 


Black Prince, . . 


Iron. 


Partially. 


6,109 


1,250 


380 


26 3} 


40 


704 


Defense, .... 


Iron. 


Partially. 


3,720 


600 


280 


24 11 


16 


445 


Resistance, . . . 


Iron. 


Partially. 


3,710 


600 


280 


24 10 


16 


455 


Royal Oak, . . . 


Wood. 


Wholly. 


4,056 


800 


273 


25 10} 


35 


600 


Launched. 


















Caledonia, . . . 


Wood. 


Wholly. 


4,125 


1,000 


273 


25 10} 


35 


600 


Ocean, .... 


Wood. 


Wholly. 


4,047 


1,000 


273 


25 10} 


35 


600 


Prince Consort, . 


Wood. 


Wholly. 


4,045 


1,000 


273 


25 10} 


35 


600 


Hector, .... 


Iron. 


Partially. 


4,089 


800 


280 


24 8 


32 


600 


Valiant, .... 


Iron. 


Partially. 


4,063 


800 


280 


24 8 


32 


600 


To be Launched 


















1863. 


















Minotaur, . . . 


Iron. 


Wholly. 


6,621 


1,350 


400 


25 8 


37 


704 


Achilles, . . . 


Iron. 


Wholly. 


6,079 


1,250 


380 


26 3} 


30 


704 


Royal Alfred, . . 


Wood. 


Wholly. 


4,045 


800 


273 


25 10} 


35 


600 


Zealous, .... 


Wood. 


Partially. 


3,716 


800 


252 


25 3 


16 




Royal Sovereign, . 


Wood. 


Wholly. 


3,963 


800 


240 


22 11 


5 


200 


Prince Albert, . . 


Iron. 


Wholly. 


2,529 


500 


240 


20 


5 


160 


Research, . . . 


Wood. 


Partially. 


1,253 


200 


195 


14 


4 




Enterprise, . . . 


Wood. 


Partially. 


990 


160 


180 


14 4} 


4 


80 


To be Launched 


















1864. 


















Agincourt, . . . 


Iron. 


Wholly. 


6,621 


1,350 


400 


25 8 


37 


600 


Northumberland, . 


Iron. 


Wholly. 


6,621 


1,350 


400 


25 8 


37 


600 


Favorite, . . . 


Wood. 


Wholly. 


2,186 


400 


225 


20 5 


8 


160 



Other authorities state the number of iron-clads in the 
French navy at ninety-four ; but, as the English reviewer 
remarks, all but those enumerated are merely swimming 
batteries for harbor defense, and small gun-boats, such as 
were used at Kinburn, in the Crimean war, Of these 
swimming batteries and gun-boats, the National Almanac 
for 1863 enumerates seventy-seven, leaving, of the ninety- 
four iron-clads, only seventeen for the ocean-going ships, 



NAVIES OF ENGLAND, FRANCE, AMERICA, AND RUSSIA. 399 

which corresponds very nearly to the statement of the 
Review. 

The condition of the Russian navy is said to have been 
as follows in 1862 : 

Steam-vessels. No. 

Ships of the line, ........ 9 

Screw frigates, . . . . . . . . 12 

Side-wheel frigates, ........ 8 

Corvettes, 22 

Clippers, 12 

Floating battery (iron-clad), ...... 1 

Frigate (iron-clad), 1 

Gun-boat (iron-clad), 1 

Gun-boats, 79 

Yachts, 2 

Schooners, 25 

Transports, .......... 9 

Small steamers, ........ 68 

249 
Sailing vessels, 62 

311 

Besides these there were, for port service, small vessels, . 300 

Such an enumeration, however, of the ships of any na- 
tion presents a very imperfect idea of the strength of its 
navy. The three hundred small ships here set down are, 
probably, of no value for offensive purposes, or distant 
service of any kind ; and the same may be said of hund- 
reds of the thousand vessels of the British navy, or of the 
seven hundred ships of France. 

Since the spring of 1862, Russia has been actively en- 
gaged in enlarging her navy, and its effectiveness has been 
largely increased. Like other nations, she has begun the 
construction of an iron-clad fleet ; and this, like the Amer- 
ican navy, will, it is said, be composed mainly, at first, of 
ships of the Monitor class, of which many, we are told, 
are already being built. 

The first necessity of Russia is precisely like our own. 
She needs batteries which will effectually protect her har- 
bors against the iron-clads of England and France; and, 
at one-fourth the cost of such a ship as the Warrior or the 



400 NAVIES OF ENGLAND, FRANCE, AMERICA, AND RUSSIA. 

Minotaur, she can construct a Monitor battery that would 
demolish either of these. 

Russia, having an unlimited supply of material for a 
navy, whether timber or iron ; ship-yards so situated that 
she can defend them against all Europe ; having also the 
benefit of American experience and skill, is able to con- 
struct a navy equal to any in the world ; and, with her 
new and most valuable possessions on the Pacific, nothing 
can prevent her from becoming, in the immediate future, 
a great maritime power. 

The Monitor forms of battery will give to Russia, as it 
does to us, an immense advantage for all purposes of de- 
fense. Wherever, in her numerous rivers, she has ten feet 
of water, she can build a Monitor that will be more than 
a match for any broadside frigate yet afloat, or that can 
be floated across an ocean. 

Defended by these batteries — invulnerable floating forts 
as they are — neither America nor Russia can be success- 
fully attacked; while within this impregnable line of de- 
fense they can construct, to say the least, as many, as swift, 
and as powerful ocean-going ships as any other nation. 

But the policy of Russia, like our own, demands peace 
and self-development, not war and conquest ; and we both 
need means of defense that will keep our ambitious neigh- 
bors at home, and the means on the ocean of defending 
our growing commerce. 

The American navy consists, according to the last re- 
port of the Secretary of the IsTavy, of five hundred and 
eighty-eight vessels, seventy of which are iron-clad. Of 
the whole number, one hundred and four are sailing ves- 
sels. The general account of these navies will stand as 
follows : 

Steam -ships. 

England, 566 

France 360 

America, 

Russia (1862), ... 248 

♦Exclusive of small gun-boats and transports; when added, they make 1,014 
"f" If add swimming batteries and gun-boats, 559. 



Sailing Ships. 


Total. 


103 


669* 


122 


482t 




588 


65 


313 



NAVIES OF ENGLAND, FRANCE, AMERICA, AND RUSSIA. 401 

The National Almanac says Russia has also four hund- 
red and seventy-four transport and coasting vessels of 
various kinds, but it does not appear precisely what they 
are. Russia has also an iron-clad fleet in course of con- 
struction, of which no mention is here made. Among her 
iron-clads are thirteen Monitors of the American pattern, 
ordered by the emperor after Admiral Lissovsky's report 
of the trial-trip of the Passaic and of her fifteen-inch guns. 

These figures, though copied from official statements, 
give only approximately the actual number of the ships 
of these various navies, because changes are being so rap- 
idly made that the statements for 1868 will not apply to 
the present year. So far as numbers alone are concerned, 
and including all classes of ships, gun-boats for harbor de- 
fense, and floating batteries, these navies may probably be 
represented in round numbers, with sufficient accuracy, as 
follows : England, 1,000 ships, including all classes ; France, 
600 ; America, 600 ; Russia, 550 to 600. 

Numbers alone, however, afford no sufficient data by 
which the navies of these nations can be compared. 
Steam has so completely revolutionized navigation and the 
construction of war ships, that the efficiency of a navy 
depends, first of all, upon the number of its steam-ships, 
then upon their speed and size, then upon their character, 
whether wooden vessels or plated with armor, and, finally, 
upon the guns with which they are armed. If we com- 
pare the steam navies of these four powers, and take the 
figures for France and England from the official state- 
ments in the North British, already quoted, the account 
stands thus: 

English Steam Navy, .... 506 

French do. do., . 360 

American do. do., 484 

Russian (in 1860), ..... 242 

Since 1860 the Russian steam fleet has been largely in- 
creased. A comparison by numbers, though in no case 
reliable, would approach more nearly to accurate results 
with the navies of Europe, than in comparing their num- 

26 



402 NAVIES OF ENGLAND, FRANCE, AMERICA, AND RUSSIA. 

bers with ours. The form, size, and armament of the 
European vessels are so far alike as to enable us to esti- 
mate, approximately, their relative strength by a statement 
of numbers ; but the American navy is so different from 
all others in the character and armament of its ships, that 
mere numbers of ships and guns give no true idea of its 
relative power. For example, the reports state the num- 
ber of guns in the English navy at about 16,500, while 
the number in our own is only 4,500 ; but when we remem- 
ber that twenty-eight of the guns of England's finest 
frigate, the Warrior, are 68-pounders, and the remaining 
twelve 100-pounders, while we have many guns on board 
our ships which carry a shot of 450 pounds, the apparent 
disparity disappears. 

Thus it is seen that a correct opinion of the relative 
power and efficiency of the American navy can not be 
formed without a somewhat minute examination of the 
character and armament of European war ships in com- 
parison with our own. It must be remembered, these 
comparisons relate to navies and war ships as they are at 
present. Inventions can not be monopolized by one na- 
tion, and if it appears that our navy and artillery are now, 
in some 'important respects, superior to all others, it will 
depend upon the skill and genius of our countrymen, and 
the resources of our country, whether this superiority is 
retained. Judging from the past, however, we have little 
cause for apprehension. Our mechanics and inventors 
have never yet failed to protect the country in her hour 
of need, and we may safely trust them for the future. 
In estimating the relative strength of navies, we have now 
to consider an entirely new element of power, the iron- 
clad ship; and we must add to this the newly-invented 
heavy artillery. Both these inventions are yet in their 
infancy, and, astonishing as the results are which are 
already reached, all estimates must be based upon things 
as they now are, for no one can foresee how soon our 
weapons and methods of warfare may be revolutionized 
again. 



NAVIES OF ENGLAND, FRANCE, AMERICA, AND RUSSIA. 403 

The fight between the Merrimac and our wooden frig- 
ates, and then between her and the Monitor, closed up 
one great era in naval warfare. By that battle the wooden 
navies of the world were virtually annihilated. After that 
fight the powers of Europe, in calculating their naval 
force, were reduced to the small catalogue of their iron- 
clad ships. The London Times then said that the navy of 
England consisted of four ships, and the English states- 
man was nearly right when he declared, in the House of 
Commons, that England had no fleet. 

In a lecture by J. Scott Russell, Esq., we find the follow- 
ing : " The first question was, were wooden ships worth 
any thing for purposes of warfare ? Sir John C. Hay, the 
chairman of the committee appointed by Government to 
make experiments on the effects of artillery upon iron 
armor, uttered this fatal sentence upon wooden fleets : 
1 The man who goes into action in a wooden ship is a fool, 
and the man who sends him there is a villain.' A list of 
the ' magnificent fleet ' which now defends England had 
been recently published, and it amounted to 1,014 ships 
of war. This was a very ' formidable inventory,' but he 
could give them a very simple analysis of the number. 
Of these 1,014 there were, of wooden ships, 1,010 ; of fast 
iron ships, 2 ; of slow iron ships, 2. A fleet of twenty 
"Warriors would be more formidable than the whole of the 
1,010 wooden ships put together." 

This is English opinion of high authority in regard to 
wooden navies. 

It is not intended, by this, to assert that wooden ships 
are, hereafter, to be considered as absolutely worthless, but 
they must hold, in the future, nearly the same relation to 
the iron clads that merchant vessels have hitherto done to 
the frigate and the line-of-battle ship. A wooden ship, of 
any size, may be regarded as absolutely powerless against 
a properly armored vessel, and, therefore, except as against 
other wooden ships, or as transports, the immense wooden 



404 NAVIES OF ENGLAND, FRANCE, AMERICA, AND RUSSIA. 

navies of the world may be left out entirely in our cal- 
culations for the future. This destroys, at a blow, the 
boasted supremacy of England and France, and places 
England, France, America, and Russia very nearly upon 
an equality in regard to naval power, with the advantage 
thus far, however, on the side of the United States, as will 
be proved. 

When a ship like the Merrimac demonstrated in actual 
battle that she could smash up and send to the bottom a 
fleet of wooden ships as the mere sport of a day, or, at most, 
without impairing her fighting powers, it shows, very con- 
clusively, that wooden navies are already a thing of the 
past, except for certain limited purposes. It is scarcely too 
much to say that, with the armament which the navies of 
the world then carried, the Merrimac might have met and 
sunk every wooden ship on the ocean, with no material 
damage to herself. She would have destroyed our finest 
frigates, the Minnesota and the Niagara, as quickly as she 
did the Congress and the Cumberland. 

No squadron of wooden vessels can hereafter enter and 
hold a harbor, or blockade a port, in the presence of a 
single iron-clad, such as every great naval power has 
already; nor could they attack a fort, with any chance of 
success, under the fire of the new artillery. They may, 
possibly, pass a fort without material injury, but they 
would only pass to certain destruction if they were to 
meet an armored vessel beyond. Laying out of the ac- 
count, therefore, the wooden navies, in estimating the 
actual fighting, power of the nations, the comparison is re- 
duced to the armored vessels now owned in Europe and 
America, and the power and resources of this and other 
countries for the construction of war ships hereafter. 

The fact that the armor plate for vessels is an American 
invention, will strengthen our confidence in the skill of 
our countrymen for the future. As once before, in the 
style of their frigates and their heavy guns, now again, in 
the iron shield and form of the ship, Americans have 
revolutionized the methods of naval war. We may hope, 



NAVIES OF ENGLAND, FRANCE, AMERICA, AND RUSSIA. 405 

therefore, that she will also lead the nations hereafter. 
The following account of the invention is copied from the 
Scientific American for February 7, 1863 : 

" On the 22d ult., Senator Cowan, of Pennsylvania, pre- 
sented a petition in the Senate from A. Stewart and others, 
asking for a pension to the widow of Thomas Gregg; it 
being claimed that he was the original inventor and pat- 
entee of iron-clad vessels. This is a new phase of this 
subject, and a brief history of the invention, according to 
the information we possess, will, therefore, be of some 
public interest just now. It is generally admitted by Eu- 
ropean engineers that, although iron-clad gun-boats were 
first brought practically into use during the Crimean war, 
the late Robert L. Stevens and E. A. Stevens, of Hoboken, 
N". Y., were the inventors of them. Vessels protected 
with angulated iron plates were proposed by them as 
early as 1816, and, for coast and harbor defense, a descrip- 
tion of such vessels was afterward submitted to a Govern- 
ment board, consisting of Commodores Stewart and Perry 
and Colonels Thair and Totten, in 1841. It was stated in 
the document proposing the construction of such a vessel 
for the defense of New York, that plates of iron four 
inches in thickness were equal to five feet four inches of 
oak in resisting a ball at point-blank distance; and, with 
the guns then in use, it was supposed that none of their 
shot could penetrate a vessel clad with such armor. In 
1843, a contract was formed between our Government and 
Messrs. Stevens for the construction of such a floating 
battery, and $500,000 was furnished by Government, and 
expended on the battery now at Hoboken. 

"During the Crimean war, in 1855, it was found that 
wooden steam frigates "were totally useless in attacking 
granite casemated forts, defended by big guns firing shells. 
An application of Stevens's invention was suggested, and 
several iron-clad gun-boats were then built for the French 
and English navies. A few of these were employed at the 
siege of Kinburn, and were decidedly successful. This led 



406 NAVIES OF ENGLAND, FRANCE, AMERICA, AND RUSSIA. 

the Emperor of France to extend the application of iron 
plates to one of his large frigates — La Gloire — which was 
completed three years ago, and was the first regular iron- 
clad war ship ever built. Since then several have been 
constructed for the French and English navies — the Ameri- 
can invention having thus been first carried into practical 
use in Europe." 

In order to mark the progress of the art of mailing ves- 
sels, from the first rude application of the American idea 
by Louis Napoleon to his gun-boats, at Kinburn, to its pres- 
ent condition, and to exhibit the marked peculiarities of 
the American iron-clads, it will be instructive to trace the 
different steps. Passing by the small gun-boats which 
fought at Kinburn, the first important trial of the iron 
mail was by the French Emperor on the frigate La Gloire, 
the construction of which was ordered in 1858. She is 
simply a frigate of the common model, cased with iron 
plates about four inches thick. The plates are said to be 
three and a half inches thick at the stern and bow, and 
four and a half inches in the center, covering the ship's 
battery. 

She is described from French authorities as about 257 
feet long, carrying thirty-six 50-pounders on a single pro- 
tected deck. Her engine is of 900-horse power, and her 
crew consists of 500 men. Her ports are only six feet 
above the water. Her width is fifty-six feet, and her 
speed thirteen and a quarter knots per hour. The French 
Emperor is constructing ten more iron-cased frigates of 
this class. Besides these, France has now at sea the Nor- 
mandie, the Invincible, the Couronne, and two larger iron- 
clad rams, the Solferino and the Magenta. 

These last carry each fifty-two guns, and have a speed 
of thirteen and a half knots per hour. The lower ports 
of these are eight feet above the water. It is also stated 
by the North British Review (August, 1863), that these 
largest French frigates are plated in the center with iron 
six inches thick. It may be stated, then, with sufficient 



NAVIES OF ENGLAND, FRANCE, AMERICA, AND RUSSIA. 407 

accuracy, that Louis Napoleon lias at present a fleet of 
sixteen iron-clad frigates, carrying, each, from thirty-six 
to fifty-two rifled 50-pounders ; that their armor-plates are 
some four and a half and some six inches thick, and that 
they have a speed equal to our fastest war ships, with the 
exception of some of our small and latest built ships, 
such as the Eutaw and the Sassacus, being much swifter 
than any of our own iron-clads. 

The Normandie has crossed the Atlantic, but no very 
favorable account has yet been given of the sea-going 
qualities of any of these Trench ships. They are said to 
roll veiy heavily, and that their batteries can not be used 
in a heavy sea, because the ports roll under. They are 
also said to be very unhealthy. These are very likely to 
be objections to all iron-clads, because, when in action, few 
of them can be properly ventilated, and the same must 
be true of them in heavy weather. So far as is known, 
all the broadside iron-plated ships roll heavily in a rough 
sea, and the remedy for this does not, as yet, appear. 

An inspection of the table already copied from the 
North British will show that English mailed vessels are, 
many of them, of much greater size and power than any 
yet constructed by the French. Nearly all of them are 
larger than the American Ironsides or Roanoke, and sev- 
eral of them are longer and of greater tunnage than the 
Dunderberg, our largest iron-clad. A brief description of 
three of these vessels will enable the reader to compare 
them with our own iron-plated fleet, and to judge whether 
we have reason for apprehension should we be compelled 
to meet them. 

The Warrior and the Black Prince are regarded as the 
model ships of the iron navy of England, and they may 
be considered as embodying the utmost skill and science 
of Great Britain at the present time. These ships are 380 
feet long ; their tunnage is 6,000 tuns ; their draught is, of 
the one, 22 feet 9 inches, and of the Black Prince, 26 feet 
3 inches. They each carry forty guns : twenty-eight 68- 
pounder, and twelve 100-pounder Armstrong guns. Their 



408 NAVIES OF ENGLAND, FRANCE, AMERICA, AND RUSSIA. 

crew is 704 men. Their armor-plates are four and a half 
inches thick, and the Warrior, on her trial trip, had a 
speed of fourteen knots, and the Black Prince ran from 
twelve to thirteen knots per hour. Their engines are of 
1,250-horse power. 

These ships are only plated with iron for two-thirds of 
their length, the how and stern heing, as English writers af- 
firm, more vulnerable than a common wooden ship. The 
battery only is protected by the iron mail, while about 
sixty feet of the stern and bow are like a common vessel. 

The Minotaur is 400 feet long ; her tannage is 6,621 
tuns; her engines are of 1,350-horse power; her draught 
is 25 feet 8 inches, and she is to cany thirty-seven guns. 
Her speed has not been ascertained. Portions of the armor 
of this ship are said to be six inches thick. The Bellero- 
phon is a newly-devised iron-clad, now being built, whose 
coming is thus heralded by the London Times : She will 
be " as terrible an assailant to iron-clads as an iron-clad 
would be to wooden ships. The object with which this 
vessel is designed is, in case of another great war, to avoid 
repetition of the long, dreary process of blockading an 
enemy's fleet, by wearisome and dangerous cruising off the 
mouth of harbors. The Bellerophon is, in short, to a fleet 
of iron-clads what a fox-terrier is to a pack of hounds. 
In case of an enemy's iron fleet running into port, she can 
follow them with impunity." 

But in the description which the Times gives of what it 
calls "this monster," one fails to discover the immense 
superiority which is claimed. 

She is 300 feet long, 56 feet beam, has a draught of 
25 feet, and her tunnage is 4,246 tuns. " It is hoped," if 
certain improvements work well, that she will make fif- 
teen knots per hour; but she is on the stocks as yet, and 
her speed is yet to be determined. Her armor-plates are 
six inches thick, but they reach to the upper deck for only 
ninety feet of the ship's length ; for the remaining distance 
of two hundred and ten feet, the plating reaches only six 
feet above the water, and all above this line and both 



NAVIES OF ENGLAND, FRANCE, AMERICA, AND RUSSIA. 409 

ends of the vessel are unprotected. She is to be armed 
with ten broadside guns, of what size we are not informed, 
and probably that is not yet determined. Of iron-mailed 
vessels, of the general character described — most of them, 
however, somewhat smaller — England has between twenty 
and thirty built, or in process of construction. Like those 
of France, they are all broadside ships, and, of course, ex- 
pose an immense surface to an enemy's fire. The import- 
ance of this will appear, when they are compared with the 
American Monitor form of war ship. 

The objections made to the French ships are, that they 
can not use their batteries except when the sea is smooth, 
and that, in rough weather, they roll so as to render them 
not only uncomfortable, but dangerous. The English 
ships require from 25 to 26 feet of water, and are, there- 
fore, unable to enter our principal harbors. From their 
great size, they are unwieldy; the joints of their armor- 
plates work in a sea, and leak; they do not steer safely; 
and, from the general tone of English criticisms, one is 
led to infer that they are by no means satisfied with the 
performance of the iron fleet. But, as neither the French 
nor English ships have been, as yet, tested in battle, no 
very definite opinion of their qualities can be formed. 

We know, however, exactly the effect which certain 
kinds of artillery will produce upon iron plates, such as 
those which form their armor ; and as the American ships 
have been exposed, at short range, to the heaviest cannon 
and the most destructive shot which England could fur- 
nish to the rebels, while at the same time our guns have 
been tried upon armor-plates in action, we have the means 
of forming a very accurate opinion of our power for attack 
or defense, as compared with other nations. 

The condition and character of the American navy de- 
mands a separate chapter, and this will involve, also, a 
description of our artillery, and then all will be able to 
make the proper comparison between our navy and those 
of Europe. 



410 THE AMERICAN NAVY. 



CHAPTER XXXVI. 



THE AMERICAN NAVY. 

At the commencement of Mr. Lincoln's administration 
our navy consisted of only forty-six vessels. In December, 
1863, it numbered 588 vessels, mounted with 4,448 guns. 
The aggregate tunnage of these ships was about 468,000 
tuns. 

The creation of such a navy in so short a time, consid- 
ering the number and character of the vessels, is without 
a parallel in the history of war. It is at once a most 
cheering proof of the vast resources of our country, and 
of the wisdom and energy with which our Navy Depart- 
ment has been conducted. In the brief space between the 
breaking out of the war and December, 1863, the country 
has been elevated into a first-class naval power ; and, 
probably, those who have been disposed to criticise the 
operations of the Secretary would find it very difficult to 
point out a course by which the safety and honor of the 
country would huve been more securely guarded. 

It is no small proof of ability in the management of the 
navy, that there was skill enough to provide, and inde- 
pendence enough to use, a form of war ship and a kind 
of cannon before untried, but which time and experience 
have shown were alone, of all ships and weapons then 
known, capable of meeting the emergency. 

Had there been a frigate built like the "Warrior in 
Hampton Roads at the time of the appearance of the 



THE AMERICAN NAVY. 411 

Merrimac, ana armed with the Warrior's guns, there are 
good reasons for believing that she would have been over- 
matched by the rebel ship. The Merrimac, with her heavy 
armament and her sloping armor, could not, probably, at 
that time, have been beaten by any ship afloat, except the 
Monitor. The Monitors and the fifteen-inch guns have 
rendered the creation of a rebel navy impossible, and these 
alone could have done it ; and this is a sufficient answer to 
all by whom they have been condemned. 

This subject, however, will be more fully discussed in 
another place. The American navy is an original creation. 
In the forms of its most powerful ships, and the character 
of its armament, it is unlike every other. 

A thorough study of all the other navies of the world 
would give no data from which to judge of the efficiency 
of the American vessels. One would be entirely deceived 
by counting their guns, or estimating their length, breadth, 
and tunnage, or the number of their crews. These things 
alone do not inform us whether they are superior or infe- 
rior to the war ships of other nations. They are modeled 
after new and strictly American ideas. Whether good or 
bad, they belong entirely to this new world. They are 
creations of this Western Republic. Not alone our Moni- 
tors, but our other ships, are American in their fitting up, 
and in the character of their weapons. Judged by the old 
standards, nothing is m#| deceitful. An American ship 
of two guns, of the latest model, may, perhaps, prove a 
match for a common forty-gun frigate ; and it is very cer- 
tain that we have two-gun vessels, one of which might 
destroy the whole fleet with which Nelson fought. It is 
necessary, then, to know both the character and the arma- 
ment of our war vessels before we can judge of their effi- 
ciency. The following statements will furnish the necessary 
information : 

It will, probably, not be denied that, up to the time of 
the invention of armor-clad vessels, the Americans had 
been the teachers of the nations in the art of ship-build- 
ing, whether sail or steam vessels, whether for commerce 



412 THE AMERICAN NAVY. 

or for war. Great length, as compared with tunnage, 
sharpness of bow, and speed, were characteristics of Amer- 
ican ships and steamboats. It is not deemed exaggeration 
that American genius has revolutionized naval architecture, 
and that the speed of European ships has been obtained 
by following, in the main, the model of the vessels of the 
United States. The ocean tub has been displaced every- 
where by the long, graceful structure, which first of all 
bore the Stripes and Stars. The London Times sneered at 
the Niagara when she went over to aid in laying the 
Atlantic cable ; but the finest frigates and corvettes which 
England has since built have assumed the Yankee form, 
and their boasted Warrior appears like a Niagara some- 
what magnified. 

A writer in an English quarterly boasts that the British 
ocean mail-steamers have driven the American ones from 
the seas ; but he forgets to state that the Collins line fur- 
nished the model for her ships, and that the American line 
failed only because, in a new enterprise, and one so expens- 
ive, private capital could not contend against the patron- 
age of the British government. 

Had our government given a liberal and steady support 
to our own vessels, there would have been a different re- 
sult. The fact that our steamers have obtained a speed of 
twenty-five miles per hour upon the Hudson ; that some 
of our lake vessels have made Jgtfenty-two miles per hour 
for hours together — such steam^mips as the Vanderbilt and 
those of the California line ; and the fact that our new war 
steamers overhaul the swiftest steamers that our English 
friends have built to run the blockade, these things do not 
indicate that we shall be very soon driven from the ocean 
by the superiority of the vessels of other nations. 

Such of our iron-clads as are yet afloat lack speed, but 
the main idea in their construction was invulnerability; 
and the event has shown, that if this had been sacrificed 
to speed or any other quality, it would have been fatal to 
our navy and our coantry's cause. 

There is great reason to be thankful that those at the 



THE AMERICAN NAVY. 413 

head of our navy were wise enough, in the first experi- 
ment upon which our all depended, to construct ships 
which no artillery of the enemy could penetrate ; for upon 
that single question the destiny of the country was at that 
moment hung. 

The best and most destructive projectiles of Europe 
were hurled against our ships at Charleston, and Europe 
was watching earnestly the result. It would inform Eng- 
land and France whether intervention would be safe. 

The only armored vessel of the common form which 
attacked Fort Darling was ruined by ten-inch shot ; and 
the only Monitor-shaped ship in which speed was aimed at 
in the construction, was riddled and sunk at Charleston. 

Had all our vessels at Charleston been as vulnerable as 
the Keokuk, the rebel cause would have triumphed at 
home and abroad, though our fleet had been the swiftest 
on the ocean. 

Four distinct eras appear in the creation of our navy. 
In one of these we followed the European models, and 
failed to produce an effective ship. The distinctive 
American idea has controlled the other three — the plac- 
ing the heaviest possible armament in the smallest 
possible space, thus diminishing the size of the ship in 
proportion to her armament, presenting a smaller surface 
to an enemy's shot, and lessening the number of the crew. 
If to this is added the AiflBjican idea of a heavy shot with 
a low velocity, rather than a small one with greater veloc- 
ity, the idea of a smashing projectile rather than a pene- 
trating one, the reader will have the leading principles 
which have governed the construction of the American 
navy and the manufacture of American cannon. Through 
various steps and countless experiments, these ideas have 
led to the Monitors and the fifteen-inch and twenty-inch 
guns, while, at the same time, every effort has been made 
to perfect our rifled cannon. 

The ships with which the Americans won their first 
naval renown, in the war of 1812-'15, were constructed 
with the intention of bringing the armament of a liue-of- 



414 THE AMERICAN NAVY. 

battle ship within the limits of a frigate. This was so 
nearly accomplished as to fill England with astonishment 
and alarm. It was found that the registered rate of our 
vessels by no means indicated their actual power ; and the 
result was, that when the Guerriere, a British forty-four- 
gun frigate, was laid along side the Constitution, an Amer- 
ican forty-four, the English frigate was demolished in 
fifteen minutes. Similar results followed, as is well known, 
in other actions ; and though it was conceded that the 
rapidity of the American fire was generally greater than 
that of the English, still our almost unbroken success was 
probably mainly due to the superior weight of the Amer- 
ican broadside. The manner in which the American idea 
of a heavy armament was carried out, will appear from 
the following comparison between British and American 
ships which fought in the war of 1812-15. The figures 
rest upon the authority of " James's Naval History," and 
" Cooper," as quoted by Mr. Alison. The weight of the 
broadside is thus stated : 

American frigate Constitution, . . . 768 lbs. 

American frigate United States, .... 804 lbs. 

British frigate Guerriere, . . . . . 517 lbs. 

British frigate Macedonian, ... . 528 lbs. 

The advantage thus gained was decisive, and the results 
gave an eclat and character tq^Siie American navy which 
it has never lost. It was the (first triumph of American 
sagacity on the ocean, and it has shaped since their whole 
naval policy. The character of the American frigate of 
that period will more fully appear from another compari- 
son. The North British, for August, 1863, states, upon 
the authority of " James's Naval History," t\\Q broadside 
of a hundred-gun ship — the three-decker, such as Nelson 
fought with— at 1,260 lbs. 

The broadside of the United States frigate was 864 lbs., 
more than two-thirds of that of the English line-of-battle 
ship with her one hundred guns. 

The American and English ideas will appear still more 



THE AMERICAN NAVY. 415 

strongly contrasted by another statement. According to 
the North British, in the article allnded to, the English 
ship of the line in the beginning of this century, in the 
time of Nelson, averaged about 2,000 tuns burden, and 
her broadside weighed 1,260 lbs. Now the Warrior's tun- 
nage is more than 6,000 tuns, and the weight of her broad- 
side is no more than 1,612 lbs. The American frigate 
Minnesota is of 3,300 tuns burden, but the weight of her 
broadside is about 2,500 lbs. 

One of our sloops, like the Brooklyn, throws a broad- 
side equal in weight, and far more than equal in efficiency, 
to that of the old English hundred-gun ship. The dif- 
ference between a British and American ship is again 
illustrated by the American New Ironsides and the Eng- 
lish Warrior, both iron-clads, and representative ships. 
The American frigate is 3,400 tuns burden, the Warrior 
a little more than 6,000 tuns. The American ship throws 
a broadside about equal in weight to that of the British 
vessel, which is nearly double her size ; and to make the 
American idea stand forth more prominent, the New Iron- 
sides mounts only eighteen guns, while the Warrior car- 
ries forty. 

Again : the turreted frigate Boanoke throws from her 
six guns a weight of metal, at a broadside, almost equal 
to that of the Warrior when using twenty guns on a side ; 
and, if armed with six fifteen-inch guns, as she can be 
if needed, her broadside from these six cannon would 
exceed that of the Warrior's guns by at least one thousand 
pounds. 

These facts present, very clearly, the peculiarities of 
American ships and American artillery, and the difference 
between them and the vessels and cannon of Europe. 
They show that the American mind is not working at 
random in regard to our weapons of war, but in accord- 
ance with original and clearly-defined ideas. The second 
era in the construction of the United States navy began 
after the war of 1812-15, in which an effort was made to 
follow the European model of the three-deck line-of-battle 



416 THE AMERICAN NAVY. 

ship. It resulted in those failures which are now used for 
receiving-ships, such as the Ohio, the North Carolina, the 
Pennsylvania, and the Vermont, which are utterly worth- 
less, except as a sort of floating warehouse. The Ameri- 
can mind does not work successfully in European harness. 
In the third era there was a return to the American idea, 
and it produced such frigates as the Minnesota, the Wabash, 
the Merrimac, the Roanoke, and the Niagara. They were 
by no means perfect ships. They failed in speed ; but still 
they were the most formidable frigates afloat. The direc- 
tion which American improvement has taken is indicated 
by the Minnesota, whose battery of fifty guns throws more 
than twice the weight of shot, at a broadside, that was 
thrown by the hundred-gun ship of Nelson's time, while 
the British Warrior, three times the size of the old three- 
decker, uses less than 400 lbs. more shot than the " old 
liner" in a broadside. 

The French and English hundred and hundred-and- 
twenty-gun ships, that were fought at Trafalgar and the 
Nile, would be greatly overmatched by such a frigate as 
the Minnesota, with her heavy guns, and firing shell hori- 
zontally, as the Russians did at Sinope, and by which the 
Turkish fleet was destroyed. 

The fourth era in the creation of the navy of the United 
States has been marked by the introduction of three new 
classes of ships: the swift, heavily armed, wooden cor- 
vette, such as the Lackawanna, the Canandaigua, and the 
Sacramento; the still swifter, double-bowed steamers, like 
the Sassacus and the Eutaw, and the various forms of iron- 
clads, of which the Monitors are the most numerous. 
This period has also been distinguished by a new foim of 
American cannon ; and these new ships and this new 
artillery have, it is believed, revolutionized the art of war, 
both by sea and land. The reasons for such a belief will 
appear from what follows. As has been stated in a 
previous chapter, France and England began the construc- 
tion of iron-clad vessels soon after the close of the Crim- 
ean war — France in 1858, and England somewhat later. 



THE AMERICAN NAVY. 417 

The general character of these ships has been already de« 
scribed. The rebel leaders, in preparing for rebellion, had 
made themselves familiar with these operations in Europe, 
and, almost immediately after the war had begun, turned 
their attention to the preparation of a formidable iron-clad 
ship. 

They had seized the most important navy-yard of the 
country — that of Norfolk — though not before the vessels 
lying there had been scuttled or set on fire and sunk. 
Among these was the frigate Merrimac, of the class of the 
Minnesota, of about 3,200 tuns burden. This ship the 
Confederates soon raised, and proceeded to convert her 
into an iron-clad battery and ram. In size she was about 
equal to the New Ironsides, to which ship she bore some 
general external resemblance. There was nothing original 
in her construction. Her armor formed an angle with her 
sides, covering her deck and guns after the manner of a 
roof, according to a plan which had been proposed but 
not adopted in England, at least in her first-class vessels. 

In the absence of official information, the exact form and 
thickness of her armor can not be stated. It has been 
variously described, some believing it to have been formed 
of railroad iron, and others stating that she was mailed 
with plates, four inches or four and a half inches in thick- 
ness. One important test was, however, applied, which 
showed more conclusively her powers of resistance than 
any measuring the thickness of iron plates could have 
done. She was attacked with nine-inch, ten-inch, and 
eleven-inch guns, their shot weighing, respectively, about 
100 lbs., 128 lbs., and 169 lbs. The heaviest guns of the 
Minnesota, the Cumberland, and the Congress made no 
impression upon her, and, although the Monitor engaged 
her for five hours with eleven-inch guns, and, at times, 
only a few yards from her side, it is not known, certainly, 
that her armor was once penetrated, although compelled 
to haul off and signal for assistance, her hull shattered by 
the smashing power of the heavy shot that yet did not 
pass through her armor. This proves that she was a ves- 

27 



418 THE AMERICAN NAVY. 

eel of the most formidable character, and that her mail 
was equal in resisting shot to that of any French or Eng- 
lish vessel which had then been built. Her destructive 
power was sufficiently shown, by her shattering and sink- 
ing, in a few minutes, with perfect ease, and with not the 
slightest inconvenience to herself so far as is known, two 
heavily armed wooden ships. She destroyed them as 
readily as if they had been bark canoes, and no one doubts 
that the Minnesota would have shared the same fate, had 
the Merrimac been suffered to approach her. The wooden 
navies of the world were virtually sunk with the Congress 
and Cumberland, and from that time it was evident that 
the ships which were to rule the seas in future were yet 
to be built. The ocean-scepter of Britain was broken by 
the blow which crushed in the sides of the Cumberland, 
and all nations were to start anew in the creation of na- 
vies. England, said the Times, had but two ships. 

The morning after the destruction of the Congress and 
Cumberland was the most hopeful one, and the proudest 
one, that ever rose on the slaveholding Confederacy. They 
Beemed to have a war-engine capable of destroying with 
ease the whole. American navy, and of entering any har- 
bor, of capturing or burning all our sea-coast cities. If 
the Merrimac was indeed a sea-boat, all this was really 
within reach of the rebels, so far as then was known. It 
is believed that nothing could have prevented her, if op- 
posed only by our wooden ships, or our forts as they then 
were, from reaching Washington, Philadelphia, or New 
York. 

Had she succeeded in this, it probably is not too much 
to say, that the cause of the Union would have been lost. 
The Christians of the country will never cease to believe 
that it was the special interposition of God which brought 
the Monitor to the scene of action just in the hour of the 
country's greatest need, and put an end to the career of 
the sea-giant which threatened to crush us at a blow. 

The Merrimac had settled, conclusively, the helplessness 
of a wooden ship, or squadron of ships, when attacked by 



THE AMERICAN NAVY. 419 

an iron-clad. This was a mailed ship, patterned in gen- 
eral after the European model, differing mainly in her 
sloping armor ; but the next day she was met by a war 
ship such as the world never saw before, a fresh invention 
of the genius of the West, a hurried, rough, imperfect 
embodying of an idea destined to work another revolution 
in the structure of ships and the methods of naval war. 
The reader should remember the size of the Merrimac in 
order to judge correctly the combat which followed. Her 
tunnage was more than twice as great as that of the 
frigates Constitution and United States, with which the 
victories of 1812-'15 were won, and almost twice as great as 
that of the hundred-gun ships of the time of Nelson. She 
ranked with the most formidable iron-clads of Europe, for 
she was completely mailed, and her angulated armor was 
thought to give her an advantage even over these. 

The next morning after the terrible feat with which she 
had startled the country, she came forth for the purpose 
of destroying the Minnesota, and then she intended, as 
was thought, to proceed at once to Washington and the 
Northern cities. 

As she approached the Minnesota, her progress was in- 
terrupted by a strange-looking something, no one on board 
the frigate knew what. " A cheese-box on a raft," they 
called the queer little boat, raft, or canoe, or whatever it 
might be. The huo;e, mailed monster seemed at first dis- 
posed to take no notice of this diminutive craft, and steered 
for the Minnesota. But the first shot from her small 
adversary was a startling proof of power. 

The practiced ear was taught by that report that the 
new-comer had at least one formidable gun. The Merri- 
mac stopped her engines and paused to observe her little 
enemy. It came straight on, showing no sign of fear, 
indicating a wish to come at once to close action. The 
first shot which struck the Merrimac showed her officers 
that the Monitor was throwing projectiles of unusual 
weight, and created some anxiety, which was by no means 
lessened when they found that their own broadside made 



420 THE AMERICAN NAVY. 

no impression upon the little turret, which hurled forth 
shot in return, whose stroke made the huge ship shudder. 
Fearing for the result, at length, the Merrimac undertook 
to do what many think so easily done — to run the Monitor 
down and sink her. She failed, but in the attempt exposed 
herself more than before to the Monitor's shot, while the 
Monitor was uninjured. This first battle of the iron-clads 
continued for five hours, and then the Merrimac, appar- 
ently much injured, drew off, signaled for aid, and was 
accompanied by some steam-tugs back to Norfolk. This 
was the end of her career. She was shortly after blown 
up, rather than risk her in another action. 

In its bearings upon naval war, the structure of war 
ships, and the destinies of this country and Europe, this 
may be considered the most important naval battle of 
modern times. The ships engaged in it so far represented 
the navies of the world, that safe general inferences could 
be drawn from it in regard to the future. 

The wooden navies of Europe and the United States 
were virtually on trial there, through the Minnesota, the 
Cumberland, and the Congress. The iron-clads of France 
and England were so nearly represented by the Merrimac, 
that an opinion formed of her would equally apply to them 
with very little modification ; while the Monitor presented 
the rude germ of the turreted navy which the United 
States has constructed since. 

The result was, that while the wooden ships were as 
egg-shells before the iron-plated one, the little turreted 
vessel, with her two heavy guns, defeated and drove off, 
with no injury to herself, a first-class iron-clad broadside 
frigate, armed with the heaviest guns then known to 
European war. 

This combat not only saved our own navy and our 
cause, but it prevented the rebels from constructing one, 
by destroying the basis of it; and showed England and 
France that the Americans could build a ship in three 
months which would be a formidable antagonist for their 
most powerful frigates. To suppose that this fact had no 



THE AMERICAN NAVY. 421 

bearing upon their policy, is to believe them less prudent 
than usual. The Monitor did, indeed, admonish Europe 
that intervention would be dangerous. Persistent efforts 
are made to show that the Monitors are all inefficient, an 
almost worthless class of ships, not worthy to be compared 
with the broadside frigates of England and France, and 
that the government is merely wasting the people's money 
in their construction. 

Before entering into a particular discussion of the pecu- 
liarities, merits, and defects of the Monitors, it may be well 
to offer a few suggestions in regard to this now famous 
battle in Hampton Roads. First, let it be asked, How 
would that fight have terminated had the Merrimac en- 
countered, instead of the Monitor, a frigate the exact 
counterpart of the English Warrior? The Merrimac was 
plated, it is said, all round ; the Warrior only for two- 
thirds of her length. Considering the terrible effect of the 
shells of the Merrimac upon the Congress and Cumberland, 
" converting them," as an English reviewer says, " into 
helpless, burning charnel-houses," how would the Warrior- 
built frigate have escaped a similar shattering in her un- 
protected bow and stern ? The Warrior is armed with 
68-pounder smooth-bores and twelve 100-pounder Arm- 
strong rifles. The batteries of the Cumberland and 
Minnesota threw heavier shot than these, and made no 
impression upon the Merrimac ; while the shot of the 
Monitor weighed 169 pounds, and, by some statements, 
180 pounds, and these were fired often . at the shortest 
possible range, and yet it is not known that the frigate's 
armor was pierced. 

What reason is there, then, for supposing that such a 
ship as the Warrior could have seriously injured the 
Merrimac ? and how much reason we have, on the con- 
trary, to think that the rebel frigate would, with her 
heavier armament and shell-guns, have been victorious ! 

Our own broadside frigate, the New Ironsides, armed as 
she now is, would, in all probability, capture or destroy 
such a ship as the Merrimac ; but it would be with far 



422 THE AMERICAN NAVT2. 

greater risk than was run by the Monitor, because her 
ends, like those of the Warrior, are not protected by 
armor. At Charleston, shells pierced these unshielded 
parts at the distance of a mile ; and, in close action with 
the Merrimac, she might, perhaps, have been seriously in- 
jured, or destroyed even, by her shells. The conclusion 
seems inevitable, that, for the purpose intended, the little 
Monitor was better adapted than any other ship .then 
afloat. 

Indeed, it is very doubtful whether any other vessel then 
in existence could have stopped and driven back into Nor- 
folk this formidable iron-clad of the rebels. But suppose 
that one of the new Monitors had encountered the Mer- 
rimac with fifteen-inch instead of eleven-inch guns. It is 
now known, both from the fate of the Atlanta and sub- 
sequent experiments, that a few minutes would have suf- 
ficed to disable the frigate. While the eleven shot did not 
pierce the Atlanta's armor, the fifteen-inch gun sent its 
shot crashing through, and with such a shock, that the 
crew of the rebel ship could not be brought back to their 
guns. 

It is not, then, exaggeration to say, as the Charleston 
correspondent of the London Times has done, that the 
Americans, since the rebellion broke out, have twice 
revolutionized the art of war — once on the sea, with the 
Monitors and their enormous guns ; and once on the land, 
with their new rifled artillery. 

The invention of the Monitor form of war vessel and the 
heavy cannon have saved the country, at least for the pres- 
ent, from intervention and foreign war ; for they have 
rendered it certain that no ship known, that can cross the 
ocean, could withstand an attack from our small Monitors 
even, armed with fifteen-inch guns, or our heaviest rifled 
ones. Experiments already made leave no doubt on this 
point. 

The extraordinary performance of the small nondescript 
craft, that saved from destruction our finest wooden frigate, 
and beat off the first iron-clad frigate that ever went into 



THE AMERICAN NAVY. 423 

action, determined the government to rely mainly upon 
this class of ship for the present defense of our harbors, 
and for the reduction of the sea-coast fortifications in the 
hands of the rebels. As large sums of money have been 
spent upon this new fleet, and as severe censure has been 
cast upon the Navy Department on this account, it is im- 
portant that Americans should fully understand what the 
peculiarities are of those ships which the government has 
made so prominent in the creation of our navy. 

It will be seen that Mr. Ericsson, in his Monitor ship, 
has aimed, first, to carry out the American idea of the 
heaviest possible battery in the smallest possible space; 
and then to construct an iron-clad vessel with the least 
possible space exposed to the enemy's shot, and so render 
it invulnerable by thicker armor than a broadside ship can 
carry. As an example, the side armor of the Dictator is 
eleven inches thick, and her turret is fifteen inches thick. 
She is, consequently, invulnerable to any shot yet known, 
but no broadside ship could swim a moment cased all round 
with such an armor as that. Mr. Ericsson then places two 
heavy guns in a revolving turret, whose walls, in the first 
Monitor, were nine inches thick. This turret is placed 
upon an open deck, so that the guns, as the turret revolves, 
can be fired in any direction. This deck is sunk almost 
to a level with the water; and the small space above the 
water-line can be so heavily armored as to be impenetrable, 
without destroying the buoyancy of the ship. In action, 
then, the Monitor ship presents a very small mark to an 
enemy's guns — only her turret, nine feet high, and some 
twenty or twenty-two feet in diameter, and a very narrow 
line of her side, just at the water's edge. These ships, in 
addition to the battle with the Merrimac, have been ex- 
posed, at short range, to the heaviest artillery and steel-shot 
at Charleston, and no shot has yet penetrated either a tur- 
ret or a side. That they should be injured by a fire which 
would have sunk any other ship afloat, was a matter of 
course ; but no gun, rifled or smooth-bore, which the rebels 
yet have tried, with all the skill of England at their dis- 



424 THE AMERICAN NAVY. 

posal, lias sent a shot through a turret or the side of a 
Monitor. 

Plates have been cracked and bent, but, with the excep- 
tion of two or three casualties from bolt-heads, (now guarded 
against), the Monitors have protected their crews from shot 
under a fire which no other vessels were ever exposed to, 
and which there is no reason to believe any other ships 
afloat could endure. 

In the creation of the new navy, the government has 
constructed — or is building, at least — four classes of Moni- 
tors, besides other forms of iron-clad vessels, both for ocean 
service and for our rivers. A brief description of one of 
each kind will enable the reader to judge of the present 
efficiency and probable future of the American iron-clads ; 
and this, with an account of our new wooden ships, will 
show what claim we have to be considered a first-class 
naval power, and whether we shall be able hereafter to 
defend our commerce abroad and our cities at home. 

The small Monitor, which encountered and beat the 
Merrimac, the pioneer ship of her class, was truly an ex- 
tempore, vessel, hurriedly built, to meet the emergency 
which the rebels were preparing for the country at Nor- 
folk ; and the great value of the principles upon which she 
was constructed is shown in the victory which was won 
over so formidable an. adversary. 

The following facts in regard to the Monitors are derived 
from an article in the Scientific American, one of the best 
authorities upon such subjects in this or any other country. 
The dimensions of the original Monitor were as follows : 

Extreme length on deck, over the armor, . . 173 feet. 

Extreme beam on deck, over the armor, . . 41 feet 6 inches. 

Depth, 12 feet. 

Length of iron hull, 127 feet. 

Width of iron hull, 36 feet 2 inches. 

Projection of armor-shelf forward, .... 14 feet. 

Projection of armor-shelf aft, .... 32 feet. 

The thickness of the side armor was five inches, above 
the water-line, diminishing first to four inches and finally 



THE AMERICAN NAVY. 425 

to tliree inches below the water. The whole armor above 
the water was two feet three inches of wood, and five 
inches of iron. The turret was made of eight thicknesses 
of one-inch iron plates. Its inside diameter was twenty 
feet, and its hight nine feet. Her armament was two 
eleven-inch guns, laid side by side, and they revolved with 
the turret. Such was the diminutive affair which con- 
quered a first-class iron-clad broadside frigate. Her suc- 
cess was due to three things : the invulnerable turret which 
shielded her guns and crew, the great weight of her shot, 
and the extremely small surface — little more than her tur- 
ret — exposed to the enemy's shot. Her defects were many, 
but they did not affect the main principles of her construc- 
tion. She was slow, but there is no good reason why a 
vessel built on the Monitor principle should not be a swift 
one, and the Puritan and Dictator are expected to be very 
fast. 

She was not a good sea-boat, nor a safe one. The 
shelf or deck which supported her armor projected over the 
hull, like the guards of a Western river steamboat; and 
this projection, being thirty-two feet aft and fourteen feet 
forward, strained her in a heavy sea, and finally separated 
the deck from the hull in a storm, and she foundered at 
sea. 

Notwithstanding these serious faults, she had settled the 
value of the principles of her construction, and the govern- 
ment at once determined to build nine more according to 
the general plan, with such changes as experience had sug- 
gested. The nine vessels of this new Monitor fleet were 
modeled alike, and their dimensions are as follows : 

Length on deck, 200 feet. 

Width on deck, 45 feet. 

Depth on deck, ....... 12 feet. 

Length of hull proper, ...... 159 feet. 

Width of hull proper, 37 feet 8 inches 

Overhang of armor-shelf forward, .... 16 feet. 

Overhang of armor-shelf aft, .... 25 feet. 

Tunnage, 844 tuns. 

Draught of water, 10 feet. 



426 THE AMERICAN NAVY. 

The side armor is composed of five one-inch, plates. 
The thickness of the armor and its wood backing is three 
feet eight inches. The deck is plated with two thicknesses 
of half-inch iron. The turret is eleven inches thick, made 
of eleven plates one inch thick. It is nine feet high, and 
the inside diameter is twenty feet. The armameut was 
originally intended to be two fifteen-inch guns. But this 
now varies : some carry one fifteen-inch and one eleven- 
inch gun, and others one iifteen-inch smooth-bore and one 
Parrott rifle, a 150 or a 200-pounder. These are the ships 
which were engaged at Charleston. 

Still another fleet of nine are, at this time, (March, 
1864), about ready for use. They vary little from those 
last described, except that they are about one-fourth larger, 
being about 225 feet long and of about 1,000 tuns burden. 
The projection of the armor-shelf is less, and the vessels 
are expected to have greater speed, and it is also believed 
that they will be good and safe sea-boats. % 

In addition to these, some twenty Monitors of less 
draught are under way, which, in other respects, are sim- 
ilar to the last described, being 225 feet long and 25 feet 
wide. They are intended to be fast boats. 

Besides these, there is another class of Monitor ships, 
now nearly finished, differing, in some particular, from 
those already mentioned. They are much larger, some of 
them being nearly 1,600 tuns burden. Their side armor 
is ten inches thick, and the thickness of the turrets is 
fifteen inches. Some of these have two turrets. 

In the frigate Roanoke there is a combination of the 
turrcted and the broadside ship. She is of the same class 
as the Merrimac. Her upper works were taken off, her 
sides plated all round with iron four and five-eighths inches 
thick in the central portion of the ship, and somewhat 
thinner, as is stated, at the bow and stern. Upon her deck 
are placed three revolving turrets, of the Ericsson form ; 
and in these she carries six guns — two fifteen-inch, two 
eleven-inch, and two 150-pounder rifles. The weight of 
her broadside, as at present armed, is about 1,500 pounds. 



THE AMERICAN NAVY. 427 

But she can cany six fifteen-inch guns if necessary, and then 
the weight of her broadside would be about 2,500 pounds. 
She is said to be a slow ship, and it seems not probable that 
her peculiar form will be adopted in the construction of new 
vessels, although she has never been tried in action. 

The Dictator and the Puritan represent still another 
class of Monitors, which are intended to be swift sea-going 
ships; and, if successful — of which no doubt is entertained, 
except in regard to their speed — they will be the most 
formidable ships of our navy, and absolutely invulnerable 
to any artillery yet in service in Europe. These two ships 
are so nearly alike, in general form and construction, that 
a description of the Dictator, copied from the New York 
Tribune, will answer for the Puritan, except that the 
Puritan is fifty feet longer than the Dictator, and will have 
two turrets. In other respects, the ships are, in .general, 
alike. 

" It having been frequently stated that the Dictator is 
an ocean iron-clad, the impression prevails that she re- 
sembles the New Ironsides and other vessels built for the 
purpose of going to sea. This is not so. The Dictator 
has none of the paraphernalia of such ocean vessels as we 
are in the habit of looking at in our harbors. She has 
none of the tall bulwarks, no masts, no rigging, no cap- 
stan on deck — nothing, in fact, that looks like an ordinary 
ship. A long-armed man could almost dip his hands into 
the water from her deck. 

" The dimensions of the hull of the vessel are as fol- 
lows :• Extreme length over all, 314 feet. The aft over- 
hang being thirty-one feet, and forward overhang thirteen, 
it leaves 260 feet between perpendiculars. Extreme 
breadth fifty, and depth twenty-two and a half feet. Un- 
like the original Monitor, and the Monitors that are now 
in course of construction, the Dictator is almost exclusively 
iron — her frames, beams, etc., being of that metal. A 
person looking at her in the river can form no idea of her 
appearance when she is completely out of water. If an 



42 S THE AMERICAN NAVY. 

ordinary ship were lifted up, and an immense shelf of 
eleven feet of iron placed on the top of her deck, over- 
hanging for a space of some four feet on each side, she 
would resemble the Dictator. Every frame and beam is 
fastened in the most secure manner ; and we believe the 
bolts were all put in red-hot, to render them sufficiently 
tight. The frames are put together in the same manner 
as those of the Montauk and Passaic, but they are much 
more formidable, some parts of them being double. The 
skin of the ship — that is, the covering of the frames — is 
of wood, . put on in slabs lengthwise, each being about 
fourteen and a half inches square- These wooden slabs 
are fastened to the iron frame with screw bolts, which 
have no nuts, thus rendering it impossible for any such 
occurrence to take place as that by which the lamented Cap- 
tain Rogers lost his life. This wooden skin is no less than 
three feet six inches in thickness. The magnitude of this 
surface can only be understood when we state that the hull 
of an ordinary European steamer does not measure more 
than eighteen to fifty inches in thickness ; so that, without 
the outside armor at all, the hull of the Dictator is nearly 
twice as thick as that of the Persia. Both forward and 
aft there are inserted in these wooden slabs immense blocks 
of iron, to make them still more formidable and powerful. 
The length of the hull, in the case of this vessel, is the 
entire length of the ship, as a man can stand on the ex- 
treme end of the bow and stern. Taking into account the 
usual slope of the sea, the Dictator could not be seen four 
miles off. 

" The armor of the original Monitor consisted of four 
and a half inches of iron, laid on in single plates, each 
one inch thick. That of the Warrior consisted of four and 
a half inches of iron, laid on in a solid slab like our own 
iron-clad frigate Roanoke. The French frigate La Gloire 
had also four and a half inches of iron laid on in a solid 
slab. Now, the Dictator has on her sides above eleven 
inches of iron, and five inches of this is in one solid beam, 
somewhat like the Warrior, the La Gloire, and the Roan- 



THE AMERICAN NAVY. 429 

oke, except that the plates of the latter were in very large 
slabs, while those of the Dictator are in beams five by 
three inches. Over these five-inch blocks of iron are six 
one-inch plates of iron ; making altogether an armor of 
eleven inches of iron, the same dimensions as the armor 
of a turret of the original Monitor, the Passaic, Montauk, 
etc. The armor begins at the deck and goes down only 
six feet, which takes it about four feet below water; so 
that the deck of the ocean iron-clad Dictator will only be 
about two feet over water. Below this armor there is 
twenty-two feet of the ship, only two feet of which is cov- 
ered by the eleven inches of iron mail. There are, there- 
fore, eighteen and a half feet of the hull which has only 
a skin on of one-inch iron plate. The weight of the armor 
is about five hundred and twenty-five tuns — the burden of 
a pretty large-sized steamer. At six cents a pound, the 
armor would cost about $63,000, without workmanship. 

" There will be but one turret, of a very improved pat- 
tern. It was originally intended to cover it with twenty- 
four inches of iron, but the perfection to which its 
construction has now been brought will render fifteen 
inches sufficient. This is four inches more than the 
armor of the original Monitor and the Passaic, and ten 
inches more than the armored sides of the vessels. The 
magnitude of the different beams and machinery of the 
turret is immense, and it is in this magnitude, and in its 
improved pattern, that it chiefly differs from the old tur- 
rets. The apparatus for working the guns will be of a 
still newer principle than any yet carried out. The revo- 
lution in naval artillery, caused by the facility with which 
four or five men can work the old fifteen-inch gun, will 
be made still more startling when one or two men can 
easily handle the immense pieces of ordnance to be placed 
in the Dictator. The turret will be covered in action 
when necessary. The new bar, which was recently added 
to the turrets of the last batch of iron-clads, since the 
disabling of the Passaic, will be adopted in the new turret 
on a much more improved principle. The bar is sixteen 



430 THE AMERICAN NAVY. 

inches thick, and fastened on with bolts. The gear of the 
turret is different from that of the other vessels, and is 
much better. The turret complete will Aveigh almost five 
hundred tuns, or thereabout, being as heavy, almost, as 
the entire armor of the vessel. It is not on board at 
present, but will be put in its place immediately, as it is 
completed. 

" The ram is the finest piece of mechanism aboard the 
ship. The ram proper is twenty-two feet of solid oak and 
iron ; unlike the Keokuk, which protruded from the bot- 
tom of the hull near the keel, this extends from the top 
of the deck, being, as it were, an extension of the entire 
armor of the ship. Another advantage in this ram is, that 
it could be carried away without any material damage or 
injury to the vessel, and without her making water. 

" The decks are perfectly clear of all incumbrances, ex- 
cept the turret. The same objection made to the other 
Monitors, relative to their liability to be injured by plung- 
ing shot, is valid in the Dictator's case; but it is only just 
to say, that, of the iron-clad vessels engaged in the attack 
on Charleston, none has suffered any serious inconvenience 
from injuries done to the deck. It seems almost impossi- 
ble, and has proved so, that a projectile fired from an 
ordinary boat could enter the deck. The armor of the 
deck consists of one and a half inches of iron, laid on in 
two plates, in the same manner as in the other vessels. 

" The main-deck — that on which the crew and officers are 
to live — is a very commodious one, being as high as that 
of any first-class sailing frigate in the navy. A man six 
feet high, with his hat on, can walk, without stooping, 
from end to end of it. Of course the different apartments 
have not been as yet arranged, all that sort of work being 
left to the last. 

" The ship is ventilated by three immense blowers ; two 
for the use of the vessel generally, and one for the express 
purpose of ventilating the engine-room. These blowers 
are of immense size, about seventy-two inches by forty- 
eight inches. An air-trunk, supplying a blower eight feet 



THE AMERICAN NAVY. 431 

in diameter, is within about thirty-five feet of the stern. 
The air to supply the other blowers is drawn from the 
top of the turret and distributed through the ship. 

" The most untraveled individual knows how vessels are 
steered. ' The man at the wheel ' has before him a com- 
pass, the hands of which point to the different parts of 
the globe. In the iron-clads this arrangement is imprac- 
ticable, the needle refuses to do its accustomed business, 
surrounded by such masses of iron as are in each turret, 
acts sluggishly, and is, in fact, perfectly useless. Several 
means have been adopted to remedy this inconvenience, 
the most successful of them being that now in use. It is 
no other than by the help of a looking-glass. The helms- 
man stands with the wheel in his hands, and before him 
is a mirror. Seven feet above his head, situated in a cop- 
per pipe lifted above the pilot-house, is the compass, which 
directs the course of the vessel. This compass is so 
arranged that the movement of its hands is reflected in 
the mirror, and thus will the Dictator be steered. 

" The machinery of the Dictator is of a more extensive 
character than that of any man-of-war built in this coun- 
try or in Europe. The cylinders will not be less than a 
hundred inches in diameter. Cylinders of these dimen- 
sions have never, we believe, been built in this city, except 
once for a side-wheel steamboat called the Petropolis. 
The cylinders are bolted into two massive wrought-iron 
kelsons, ten feet deep, and some twenty-four inches or 
more in width. They are both in line, athwart ships, 
and have large slide and expansive valves, the latter work- 
ing over the former. A peculiar feature of the machinery 
is the absence of guides, cross-heads, and other cumbrous 
parts. The pistoii, four feet stroke, has a trunk attached to 
it. The boilers are immense, six in number, and have fifty- 
six furnaces, and an aggregate grate-surface of 1,100 feet : 
allowing twelve pounds of coal per square foot of grate- 
surface, the vessel will require at least one hundred and sev- 
enty-five tuns of coal per day of twenty-four hours steaming 
at full speed. The weight of these boilers will be almost 



432 THE AMERICAN NAVY. 

seventy tuns each, that is, four hundred and twenty tun8 
altogether, without water; so that when they are com- 
pleted they will weigh over seven hundred tuns. The 
cast-iron in the hoilers alone, at six cents a pound, will 
amount to $14,000. The shaft is also a gigantic piece of 
mechanical work ; it weighs something like thirty-six tuns, 
the burden of an average sloop. The propeller is a right- 
handed true-screw, twenty-one and a half feet in diameter ; 
has thirty-four feet pitch, and weighs 39,000 pounds. 
There is no outboard bearing for the shaft. What piston 
speed will be obtained from the engines remains to be seen. 
The propeller is in a well, and can not be struck by any 
projectile, as a shot would have to pass through twenty- 
six feet of water to strike it. The engines are calcu- 
lated to be something in the neighborhood of 5,000-horse 
power. 

" One of the greatest difficulties in the way of making 
the iron-clads permanently useful was that of protecting 
the bottoms from the filth which concentrated there and 
prevented them from moving. The original Monitor had 
to be towed from Fortress Monroe to Washington, on 
account of her bottoms being so foul. The English frigate 
"Warrior also experienced a similar inconvenience, and we 
learn that some Monitors at present off Charleston are 
very foul. All sorts of paints have been tried, and all 
with want of success. The most popular was a sort of 
English ' peacock ' paint, which was used in some of the 
mail steamers ; but it did very little good. On the bottom 
of the Dictator, however, and on all of our iron-clads to 
be built henceforward, and most of the naval-built vessels, 
a successful remedy has been devised, which will keep 
the bottoms perfectly clear of all filth. It is called ' ship- 
zinc' paint, and is perfectly white in color. Some thirty 
years since a vessel was coated with it in England; she 
arrived here a few weeks ago, and her bottoms were found 
in perfect order. The government has responsible parties 
furnishing the paint, and its purity can be relied on. It 
is confidently expected that a vessel so complete, with 



THE AMERICAN NAVY. 433 

eleven inches of armor and such a heavy battery, will 
prove herself the Dictator of the ocean." 

This description is the latest given of this ship, it hav- 
ing been written at the time when she was launched. 
Her armament, it is said, will be two thirteen-inch wrought- 
iron guns, made after the patterns furnished by Mr. Erics- 
son himself. 

The Dunderberg is another monster iron-clad, much 
larger than either the Puritan or the Dictator, and very 
different in form, size, and general construction from any 
previously described. This is being built at the ship-yard 
of W. II. Webb, New York, and will soon be ready for 
launching. The following description will give a general 
idea of this powerful ship. It is copied from the Scien- 
tific American, of March 14, 1863 : 

" The formidable ram-frigate Dunderberg, now building 
for the government by W. H. "Webb, at his yard at the 
foot of Sixth Street, this city, is in a very forward state, 
and being completed as fast as possible. We lately visited 
this vessel, and are able to furnish a few details of her con- 
struction, which we think will prove acceptable to our 
readers. 

" The hull of the Dunderberg is massive, being solid 
from stem to stern. It is 378 feet long, sixty-eight feet 
wide, and thirty-two feet deep. The frames are twelve 
inches thick, and are built of oak, firmly bolted and 
fastened together. The model of the ship is very peculiar. 
The floor is dead flat for the whole length, and the sides 
rise from it at an angle everywhere save forward, where 
they are very nearly vertical. The bow is as sharp and has 
as fine lines as it is possible to give it ; and the stern and 
run aft are very clean and handsomely modeled. The hull 
is divided by several water-tight compartments, both lon- 
gitudinally and transversely —a precaution common to 
nearly all modern sea-going ships, which has been found 
indispensable. The frames are strapped diagonally with 

28 



434 THE AMERICAN NAVY. 

heavy irons, five inches wide by seven-eighths of an inch 
thick, blunt bolted to them. There is a slight sheer on 
deck, but it is almost invisible to the casual observer at 
a short distance. There is but one rudder : provision is 
made, however, for steering by an auxiliary apparatus of a 
peculiar nature, should the main steering-gear be shot away. 
The frame timbers, twelve inches thick, are ceiled inside 
five inches thick, planked outside five inches thick, and 
over the planking two courses of heavy oak beams, twelve 
inches thick, are again laid, making in all an aggregate 
amount of nearly five feet of solid timber on the ram's sides. 
The planking is all caulked, and the seams payed, before 
the last protection is applied, and the entire mass is as 
firmly bolted together, as it is possible to do it. 

" The ram on the Dunderberg is about as formidable a 
looking object as one can conceive. The entire fore-foot 
of the vessel is prolonged thirty feet from the hull proper, 
and, rising easily upward from the keel about half the dis- 
tance from the water-line, is there rounded, presenting a 
blunt end in shape like the profile of an ax-edge ; it then 
runs back toward the stem again. The mass of wood 
which forms this ram projects inside of the hull almost as 
far as it docs outboard, and is there substantially secured 
to the main timbers. The sides and edge of the ram will 
be iron-plated ; and even should the whole of it be knocked 
off in an affray, the builders say that the hull will be 
water-tight. 

" The Dunderberg has, on top of the main-deck, case- 
mated quarters for the guns and crew. This casemate 
slopes at an acute angle from the sides to the top. It 
takes up a large portion of the vessel amid-ships, and is 
an elongated octagon in shape. It is made of heavy tim- 
ber, plated with iron four and a half inches thick. It is 
pierced on each side for three broadside guns, and has one 
port forward and another art, in the casemate, for bow and 
stern firing. The hull of the ship is built out from a dis- 
tance below the water-line to meet the edge of the case- 
mate above, so that the broadside of the Dunderberg will 



THE AMERICAN NAVY. 435 

present an acute angle to the line of the enemy's fire. We 
do not know what the inclination of the casemate and side 
is, but it can not be less than 45°. The mass of wood and 
iron presenting a resistance to the enemy's rams or pro- 
jectiles at this point amounts in all to seven feet. There 
are to be two turrets on the top of this casemate. The 
thickness of the turret-walls will be much greater than 
those of the 'Monitor' batteries, and strong enough to 
resist the heaviest ordnance. 

" The armament of the Dunderberg has been variously 
guessed at by parties. As it is not publicly known what 
it. will be, we are not able to inform our readers, further 
than that rumor assigns the twenty-inch guns to the 
broadside, while each turret will also contain two heavy 
guns. The deck of the casemate, and also the main-deck, 
will be plated bomb-proof; and the quarters for the officers 
and crew, being in the fortress on deck, will be thoroughly 
ventilated and open to the light and air : there will then be 
none of that depressing influence which is so marked in the 
departments assigned to the crews on the other batteries. 

" One great and overwhelming advantage that this 
splendid vessel has is, that she is built of wood. She may 
leak, become water-logged, roll, pitch, and toss, but there 
will still be some hope for the crew as long as they stick 
to her. Iron batteries fill and plunge out of sight with 
very little warning. The effect of this fact upon sailors 
morally is not the least important one. Although no men 
could have behaved better than the crew of the Monitor 
did in their peril, yet they all felt that their case was 
hopeless ; and if they were saved, it would be more the 
result of good fortune than any aid which their ship could 
afford them. The Dunderberg will draw about twenty 
feet of water. Her speed is not stated. Her engines are 
estimated at 6,000-horse power. We are not able at pres- 
ent to give particulars of them." 

This is one of the largest war ships in the world, and 
qpiite different from all others yet devised. 



436 THE AMERICAN NAVY. 

If to these descriptions is added an account of some of 
the iron-clads intended for the rivers, the reader will have 
the means of forming a correct opinion of the mailed navy 
of the United States in its present condition, (March, 1864). 
The gun-boats Lafayette and Tuscumbia have been selected 
as types of our most powerful river iron-clads. 

The Lafayette is 304 feet long, fifty feet beam, and 
draws eight and a half feet of water. Her plating is two 
and a half inches thick, backed by two inches of India- 
rubber and twelve inches of solid oak. Her armament 
consists of two 200-pounder Parrott guns, two 100-pounder 
Parrott guns, and four nine-inch Dahlgrens. 

The description of the Tuscumbia is taken from the 
Scientific American : 

" The Tuscumbia is one among the largest vessels in 
the Western fleet. In strength of timbers, imperviousness 
of her coat of iron mail, stanckness of build, and com- 
pleteness of outfit, she will rank among the very best of 
the iron-clads yet built. Her length is 182 feet, breadth 
of beam seventy feet, depth of hold eight feet. She will 
draw five and a half feet of water with all her armament, 
stores, coal, etc., aboard. 

" Her machinery is of superior finish and extraordinary 
strength, and is all below the iron-clad deck, and is con- 
structed upon an entirely new plan, lately approved and 
adopted by the navy. She has two cylinders, thirty inches 
in diameter, six feet stroke, working two powerful side- 
wheels twenty-five feet in diameter, twelve feet bucket. 
She is also supplied with two other cylinders, twenty 
inches stroke, working two screw propellers six feet six 
inches in diameter. She is furnished with two small 
engines for working the capstan ; one forward and the 
other aft. She has six twenty-eight-feet boilers forty 
inches in diameter, with five flues each, with an auxiliary 
pumping-engine for filling the boilers. By her pumps the 
vessel could be flooded in a short time. 

" The Tuscumbia has, in addition to her armament, an 



THE AMERICAN NAVY. 437 

apparatus for throwing hot water, capable of ejecting a 
scalding stream to a distance of two hundred feet. The 
armament consists of three eleven-inch Dahlgren guns, in 
battery, forward, and two 100-pounder rifled guns, in bat- 
tery, aft. The iron plating on the batteries or gun-rooms 
is six inches in thickness forward, and four inches thick 
aft. The sides of the vessel are plated with three-inch 
wrought-iron ; the deck with one-inch wrought-iron. 

" The cost of the Tuscumbia will be about $250,000. 
Her magazines are provided with an apparatus by which 
they can be completely flooded in the short space of one 
minute. A bulwark of iron, loop-holed, for musketry, is 
placed around her guards. Her speed will be about twelve 
miles an hour against the current. She will be manned 
by 150 marines. Her custom-house measurement is 980 
tuns." 

It must not, however, be thought that these two boats 
represent nearly all the Western iron-clads. They are of 
many different forms, and vary greatly in their armament 
and general efficiency. Many of them are expensive and 
powerful vessels. Some of those lately constructed have 
turrets ; and the form of these has been varied, in order 
to try experiments which might settle important questions 
of construction. Their armament, in general, is very 
heavy — nearly all of them carrying one or more guns of 
greater caliber than can be found on the largest French 
and English frigates. Eleven-inch smooth-bores and 200- 
pounder rifles are common guns on board the larger class 
of the river iron-clad gun-boats. They have been used 
successfully against fortifications armed with the largest 
cannon, rifled and smooth-bore, which the rebels have, and 
have proved a most efficient arm of the nation's power. 

The only broadside ocean ships which the Americans 
have yet plated with iron, except the Roanoke, which has 
an exposed side and turrets also, are the -small corvette Ga- 
lena and the New Ironsides frigate. It is stated that the 
Galena was mailed with plates three and a half inches thick 



438 THE AMERICAN NAVY. 

She was pierced and nearly ruined by ten-inch shot in the 
fight at Fort Darling, while the same kind of shot made 
no serious impression on the armor of the Monitor. 

The New Ironsides is a first-class frigate, whose tunnage, 
according to the register, is about 3,500 tuns. She is, 
therefore, somewhat larger than the Minnesota, and about 
1,000 tuns less in burden than the Niagara. Her armor- 
plates are four and a half inches thick ; and her armament 
consists of fourteen eleven-inch smooth-bores, two 150- 
pounder rifles, two 50-pounder rifles, and two howitzers. 

Her broadside, therefore, is very nearly the same with 
that of the Warrior in weight ; but her principal shot 
weigh 170 and 150 pounds, while those of the English frig- 
ate weigh 68 and 100 pounds — the latter used in Armstrong 
guns. 

Such guns as the New Ironsides carries defeated the 
Merrimac, though the Monitor had only two of them ; 
while the Ironsides has been exposed at Charleston to far 
more formidable guns than any yet used on an English, 
or, indeed, on any European ship, and has received in all 
those battles no serious injury. The Charleston corre- 
spondent of the London Times describes her broadside as 
the most terrible one in its effects ever thrown from a ship. 
Except in speed, this ship has fully answered the expecta- 
tion of the country. She was constructed, however, with 
a more anxious care to obtain a powerful and invulnerable 
battery than to give her unusual speed. The broadside 
ship and the Monitor batteries are designed for different 
spheres of action ; and while swiftness is desirable in both, 
it seems more important for the broadside ship that is in- 
tended for an ocean cruiser. 

It must be remembered, when comparing the armament 
of American and European ships, that changes are con- 
tinually going on ; and the indications are that England 
is disposed to follow our lead in the adoption of heavy 
guns ; and we may expect to see some of her new ships 
armed with the largest guns which she is able to fabricate. 
It is announced, for instance, that the Royal Sovereign, a 



THE AMERICAN NAVY. 439 

turreted ship, is to carry 300-pounder guns. As yet Eng- 
land has not produced a reliable cannon of this size, much 
less has she mounted one on the deck of a ship. But if 
Americans teach her the art, she will do it hereafter. 
Our largest wooden frigates, such as the Wabash, the 
Minnesota, and the Niagara, are ships of only medium 
speed, but they are heavily armed with the most formi- 
dable cannon which have ever been used, except those on 
board the Monitors. As an example, the Niagara, which 
has been undergoing extensive repairs, in the hope of in- 
creasing her speed, lately took on board, as her armament, 
twenty-four eleven-inch smooth-bore guns and twelve 200- 
pounder Parrott rifles, with which the weight of her broad- 
side would be 3,200 pounds, twice that, or nearly so, of 
the English Warrior. This armament, however, was found 
to sink the ship too low in the water, and it has been 
changed. The case, however, indicates the direction of 
American experiments. Our new corvettes, such as the 
Lackawanna and the Canandaigua, are very swift ships, 
and, in size, are nearly equal to the old form of the line- 
of-battle ship, while their armament is far more formi- 
dable. 

This general survey of the American navy may he com- 
pleted by stating that among our smaller vessels are 
some of the swiftest in the world. 

American Artillery. 

It will be seen, from the foregoing statements, that the 
comparative efficiency of the new American navy depends 
upon two things : the American, or Ericsson form of the 
turreted ship, and the power of our new artillery. If the 
Monitor batteries are really invulnerable, yet, if they are 
not armed with guns that can shatter or pierce the sides 
of an enemy's ship, they would be nearly worthless, while 
the superiority and even the safety of our ships of other 
forms must depend upon the character of their guns. 

Other nations as well as our own are earnestly engaged 
in costly experiments with artillery. What they may 



440 THE AMERICAN NAVY. 

hereafter produce, of course, none now can know ; but, up 
almost to the present hour, the effort of the artillerists 
of Europe has been to obtain the highest possible velocity 
for the shot, the greatest possible power of penetration, 
sacrificing to these ends the weight of the projectile. 

The American theory, on the contrary, has been to 
increase the weight of the shot, at the expense of its 
velocity if necessary — to use, in any event, for breaching 
walls and smashing armor-plates, a heavy projectile, and 
then, by rifling or otherwise improving the gun, to increase 
velocity and range. 

Acting upon these opposite theories, the English have 
mounted, as yet, upon their ships no smooth-bore cannon 
larger than the eight-inch 68-pounder, which forms the 
principal broadside guns of the Warrior, while the Amer- 
icans have already in actual service, on their vessels, nine- 
inch, ten-inch, eleven-inch, and fifteen-inch smooth-bore 
guns, while a twenty-inch gun has just been cast at Pitts- 
burg, said to be intended for the Dunderberg; and 200- 
pounder rifles are found on even our gun-boats, and 300- 
pounder Parrott rifles are in our batteries at Charleston. 

Before statins; facts in re°*ard to American cannon which 
might seem an empty boast, it may be well to present 
some very late English opinions upon our new artillery. 
The first extract is from the Richmond correspondent of 
the London Times, and, of course, not inclined to over- 
estimate an American invention. 

"Again I feel tempted to raise a warning voice about 
the disparity of the armament on board of the English 
and American navies. It is impossible for those who have 
been many months absent from England to be well in- 
formed as to the actual state of public opinion at the 
present moment upon this vital subject. But, judging 
from the officers of Her Majesty's navy who have, at rare 
intervals, brought vessels of war into Confederate ports, it 
appears still to be held that the 68-pounder or eight-inch 
smooth-bore is England's best weapon of offense against 



THE AMERICAN NAVY. 441 

iron-clad vessels. The experience gained at Charleston 
enables me confidently to affirm that as well might you 
pelt one of the Yankee Monitors or the Ironsides with 
peas as expect them to be in any way damaged by eight- 
inch shot. 

"Another disagreeable question forces itself upon an 
Englishman's attention when he is cognizant of the terrific 
broadside thrown by the eight eleven-inch guns of the Iron- 
sides — one of the most formidable broadsides, in the opin- 
ion of the defenders of Charleston, which has ever been 
thrown by any vessel upon earth. Have we any ship in 
existence which could successfully resist such a broadside, 
and respond to it with any thing like commensurate 
weight and vigor? I should be faithless to my duty 
if I did not mention that it is the universal opinion 
of all the English officers serving in the Confederate army, 
with whom I have conversed, that England is behind 
America in the weight and power of the guns sent by both 
nations to sea. 

" It is still a matter of the greatest surprise to those who 
are cognizant of the endless experiments in guns and pro- 
jectiles which are every day made by the Federal and 
Confederate States, that England has not thought it worth 
her while to attach to the armies of both nations such a 
commission as McClellan had in the Crimean war, with a 
view to their gaining such scientific information with re- 
gard to ordnance and projectiles as at this moment can be 
gained nowhere else on earth. It is my conviction that 
from both sections such commissioners would receive noth- 
ing but courteous and unreserved information upon all 
that it imported them to know. It is scarcely creditable 
to our government that they should be blind to the op- 
portunities for gaining information which this gigantic 
conflict affords, or that, from Old World pride, they 
should refuse to avail themselves of the experience to be 
derived from a continent destined henceforth and ever- 
more to play no secondary part in the drama of the 
world." 



442 THE AMERICAN NAVY. 

I 

The second opinion is taken from the Army and Navy 
Gazette (London") : 

" It may be concluded as certain that the guns used by 
Gillmore were Parrott's rifled ordnance. Their work has 
been effectually done. Had such guns been available in 
the trenches before Sebastopol, the Allies would have made 
short work, not only of the Redan and Malakoff, and 
bastion du mat, but of the shipping and of the forts at the 
other side of the harbor. It must not be supposed that 
Sumter was a flimsy, gingerbread fort. It was constructed 
of a peculiar kind of hard, close brick, six and seven feet 
thick; the arches of the casemates and the supporting 
pillars were of eight and nine feet thickness. The faces 
presented to the breaching batteries must have subtended, 
at 3,500 yards, an exceedingly small angle, and the eleva- 
tion of the fort was low. But so great was the accuracy 
of the fire that a vast proportion of the shots struck it ; 
so great the penetration, that the brick-work was perforated 
'like a rotten cheese;' so low the trajectory, that the shot, 
instead of plunging into, passed through the fort, and 
made clean breaches through both walls. Now, the guns 
that did this work cost, we believe, just one-fourth of our 
ordnance, cwt. for cwt. ; they are light and very easily 
handled. The gun itself is finely rifled, with grooves 
varying from four and five in number, for small calibers, 
to six and seven for the larger ; but, as Mr. Parrott is 
still 'experimenting,' no settled plan has been arrived at, 
and all we know is that the pitch is not so sharp as is the 
case in our rifled guns. The projectile is like the conical 
Armstrong, and has a leaden sabot and coating — at least 
it is coated and based with some soft metal. 

" In this journal the attention of the government authori- 
ties has been called, again and again, to the Parrott and 
Dahlgren guns. The Americans have constructed cannon 
of calibers which to us are known only as of theoretical and 
probable attainment, and they have armed batteries hund- 
reds of miles from their arsenals, with the most powerful 



THE AMERICAN NAVY. 443 

guns ever used in war, which have been carried by sea and 
in stormy waters to the enemy's shores. Before such pro- 
jectiles as these guns carry, the breaching of masonry, 
whether of brick or stone, is a question of short time. And, 
in face of these facts, we are obliged to record that our sci- 
entific officers are of opinion that our ' best gun for breach- 
ing purposes is the old 68-pouuder ! ' Why, we know what 
that can do ! We know that at 3,500 yards its fire would 
be about as eii'ectual as that of Mons. Meg. These trials 
at two hundred yards are perfectly fatuous, if no other 
results than these, or such as these, be gained by them. 
It is of no use saying Sumter was of brick; it was at least 
as good a work as most of our existing fortifications, and 
infinitely less easy 'to splinter up' than a work of granite 
or rubble masonry. In substance it resembled very much 
our martello-towers on the beach at Hythe. Have we 
any gun which could breach one of these at 3,500 yards? 
. . . The authorities have had no experience of the 
effect of such shot as the Dahlgrens propel. They have 
not got the guns to discharge them. When next the 
ordnance officers and gentlemen meet, let them apply their 
minds to the little experiments the Americans have been 
making for their benefit at Sumter. It is astounding to 
see what progress has been made in artillery since the 
Crimean war." 

Another English periodical, by no means favorable to 
Americans, makes the following observations upon the 
operations at Charleston: 

" < The Swamp Angel,' as the Federals call the big gun 
of General Gillmore, has surely bellowed loud enough at 
Sumter to wake up some of our critics at home to what is 
a fact in despite of them. As they have underestimated the 
civil contest, so they have overlooked the Titanic charac- 
ter of the military duel, peddling and muddling over 
strategics on the map, and blind, meanwhile, to the revo- 
lution which these giant combatants are accomplishing in 



444 THE AMERICAN NAVY. 

the' art of warfare. If the Americans are vain of being 
' big,' why not do them the justice of confessing that they 
attain that adjective, in their contentions, their sufferings, 
and their engines and methods of warfare? Twice in the 
course of this two-years struggle they have altered the 
complexion of the science of destruction — once on the 
water, and once on land. The Monitor and Merrimac 
confessedly initiated a new era in naval tactics. The plates 
of both are hardly rusted by the salt water into which 
they went down so soon ; but already every country that 
pretends to keep the sea armed is fitting out vessels after 
their kind. Now, it is a revolution in the art of attack 
by battery and defense by battlements, which these ener- 
getic fighters have developed. Sumter is down — breached 
and shattered into such a ruin that hardly one stone stands 
upon another. And this, after repeated failure with such 
artillery as could be made to float aboard ship, has been 
accomplished by enormous cannon fixed on a land-battery, 
discharging bolts of two hundred pounds weight, at a 
range of four thousand four hundred yards. Six hundred 
of these Olympian thunderbolts were hurled across this 
interval upon the walls and parapets of Sumter during the 
course of three days, and with such deadly accuracy that 
the proud key-stone fortress of Charleston Harbor withered 
under them ; and an eye-witness writes, that a moldy 
cheese fired at for a month with pistols could not present 
a more forlorn appearance than Fort Sumter at the close 
of the bombardment. No arsenal is safe, no empire secure 
which is too proud to study this lesson. Nevertheless, Avhat 
is chiefly remarkable about the destruction of Sumter is 
the range at which it was accomplished, and the precision 
of the fire by which these huge bolts were flung. The 
200-pounders are said to have gone through and through, 
till the further channel of the fort could be seen be- 
tween the gaping rents and fissures of the double wall. 
Neither Mr. Whitworth nor Sir William Armstrong has 
shown us any thing in range and accuracy like this. The 
American officers have, first in their profession, laid, and 



THE AMERICAN NAVY- 445 

kept at work throughout three days, siege-guns the like 
of which for weight were last used when Mohammed be- 
' sieged Constantinople. We do not hesitate to say that 
our Spithead forts must he reconsidered, as to structure 
and position, if our enemies, whoever they may be, can be 
made to fire these American guns from their floating 
batteries." 

The facts upon which these Englishmen have been com- 
pelled to review and change their opinions of American 
affairs are such as all Americans should know and study, 
and they are presented to the reader, in order that he may 
feel confidence in American genius, and know the nature 
and power of our new weapons of war. It is proposed to 
confine these statements to our largest cannon, for they 
alone are peculiarly American. The 300-pounder Parrott 
gun is the most destructive one, at long ranges, which has 
as yet been used, either in this country or elsewhere. 

Its range is between five and six miles, and Charleston 
has been effectually shelled at a distance of five miles. 
This gun, as is said, has thrown its shot through nine 
inches of solid iron. 

The 200-pounder Parrott rifle has a range scarcely less 
than the former ; and with these guns Sumter was riddled 
and demolished at the distance of two miles and a half, a 
feat before unheard of in all the records of war. In the 
destruction of Fort Sumter the Monitors and the New 
Ironsides assisted, but the work was performed mainly by 
the land-batteries, because the destruction was certain 
without exposure of the fleet, and with little loss of life. 
Some of the Monitors are armed with one of these guns, 
and one fifteen-inch one. The shot of the fifteen-inch 
gun weighs 425 pounds, and the shell 334 pounds. These 
monster guns, being as yet experiments, have been handled 
very cautiously in regard to the charges of powder. In 
the trial of this gun at Fortress Monroe, General Barnard, 
of the Engineer Corps, says the shell, with a charge of 
forty pounds of large-grained powder, had an initial veloc- 



446 THE AMERICAN NAVY. 

ity of 1,328 feet per second, and a range of more than 
three miles, with 28° 35' elevation. 

He gives his opinion that the maximum range of this 
gun is " considerably beyond four miles." It has been 
lately found that these, as well as our other large cast-iron 
smooth-bores, will bear charges heavier than those hith- 
erto used. The French armor-plates are said to be supe- 
rior in resisting power to the English ones. A French 
plate, six inches thick, and prepared especially for a tar- 
get, was lately, at the Washington Navy-yard, smashed in 
pieces by a single shot from one of these fifteen-inch guns. 

" While rifle sea-coast guns give vastly increased accuracy, 
range, and penetration at the higher elevations, the effect 
upon armored vessels of their projectiles of relatively 
smaller diameter is very much less destructive than the 
smashing shock of the immense iron spheres projected 
from the thirteen, the fifteen, or the twenty-inch. 

" There is no longer any question of the fact, that the 
introduction of guns which project such enormous spheres 
of iron have restored to forts their pristine superiority over 
ships. No sea-going armored vessel can withstand the 
shock of a fifteen-inch shot ; and it is believed that a 
thirteen-inch, or even a ten-inch solid shot will be found 
to be quite as effective. It is, therefore, safe to assert, 
that our harbors, defended by forts armed with such guns, 
and having the advantage of artificial submarine obstruc- 
tions, are securely barred against any ship that can cross 
the ocean. The wreck produced by the impact of these 
mighty spheres will set at defiance the most energetic 
efforts of ships'-pumps or ship-carpenters' plugs ; and, as 
in the case of the brief but eloquent duel of the Weehaw- 
ken and the Atlanta, the men of which latter vessel were 
driven below from their guns, and could not be induced to 
return to them, it produces a moral effect as irresistible as 
t is fatal." 

The armor of the Atlanta, equal, as is said, to five inches 



THE AMERICAN NAVY. 447 

of solid iron, was pierced by a shot from a fifteen-inch 
gun, and the ship captured. 

The government has lately constructed a thirteen-inch 
gun of the same external dimensions, or nearly so, as the 
fifteen-inch gun. It is supposed that this will bear a much 
heavier charge of powder, and the velocity and range of 
the shot be proportionately greater. To test the penetrat- 
ing and smashing power of cannon-shot, a ten-inch gun 
was lately loaded heavily and fired at an iron target ten 
inches thick, and the ball pierced it through. 

The heavy Parrott rifles will pierce armor-plates of four 
inches and five inches thickness with ease. The 300- 
pounder smashes a nine-inch plate ; and Stafford's projec- 
tiles, thrown from a cast-iron smooth-bore, have gone 
through seven inches of solid iron, with only fourteen 
pounds of powder. 

These facts, in connection with what has been before 
stated, will enable one to judge of the comparative power 
of our navy, and our means of attack and defense. The 
reader must remember that the results already reached are 
the first fruits only of American genius when earnestly 
applied to the arts of war ; and that experiments are even 
now going on which promise still more formidable cannon 
than any now in use. 

In estimating the power of our weapons, the reader 
must not forget that the old solid cast-iron spherical shot 
and the spherical shell are no longer the most formidable 
projectiles used in cannon. Elongated shot and shells of 
many different forms are used in our rifled cannon, and 
lately such projectiles have been used in our smooth-bores, 
and even in the fifteen-inch guns. According to Captain 
Rodgers' report, it was a conical shot from a fifteen-inch 
gun which smashed the side of the Atlanta, and drove the 
crew in a panic from their guns — the eleven-inch gun hav- 
ing failed to injure her. 

Some of these elongated missiles, whose length is about 
twice and a half their diameter, are rounded like a cone, 
some are flat-headed, some have the end formed like a 



448 THE AMERICAN NAVY. 

punch, some are cast-iron, some are of chill eel-iron, some 
have case-hardened ends, some are of wrought-iron, and 
some are of steel. These last are said to he the most de- 
structive shot which have yet been tried, so far as pene- 
tration is concerned; but whether these or the smashing 
heavy shot — a 425-pounder — would soonest destroy a ship 
or fort, is a question yet to be tried. 

The reader can now form an intelligent opinion of the 
comparative power for attack and resistance of the Amer- 
ican and the European iron-clad. But before the direct 
comparison is made, let the following statement be care- 
fully read. It is the opinion of one of the most competent 
judges of such matters in this country — the editor of the 
Scientific American — upon the condition of the Monitors 
after the attack upon Sumter ; an opinion formed, as is 
shown, after a personal inspection of the vessel most in- 
jured in the fight : 

"Now that the smoke of battle has cleared away, and 
the fearful cannonading at Fort Sumter, which so annoyed 
the twittering reporters, has ceased, we may review the 
event dispassionately and with reason, at least in so far as 
it concerns the offensive and defensive powers of the Mon- 
itors. The daily press, through its accredited representa- 
tives, made great haste to assure the public that their 
favorite batteries, those in which (not unwisely) they 
placed the greatest confidence, were altogether unsuitable, 
and, in fact, were not available against heavy artillery. 
At the time we were compelled, against our judgment, in 
view of the overwhelming representations of these self- 
constituted authorities, to accept as a fact that we were 
beaten in the contest, and compelled to retire from the 
fort by sheer force alone. Even at the time of the action, 
and in days supervening, that portion of the press of the 
country who criticised the conduct of the attack were im- 
mediately frowned down, and, to say the least, sent to 
* Coventry' by other papers, whose interests or opinions 
ed them to sustain the part our commanders took on that 



THE AMERICAN NAVY. 449 

occasion. We were treated with graphic accounts of the 
effects of the rebel shot on the Monitor's turrets ; and it 
was asserted that the most destructive shot that was fired 
on the occasion struck the Passaic's turret near the top, 
and. after scooping out an immense portion of it, broke all 
the eleven plates, and spent its force on the pilot-house, 
which it very nearly demolished. This is the spirit, if not 
the exact letter, of the accounts furnished. Now, we have 
examined the turret of the Passaic since her arrival here 
for repairs, and, with all due respect for the reporter's 
rhetoric and his sensational paragraph, we must say that 
it is bosh. The shot did strike the turret, did scoop out a 
portion, (which might weigh twenty-five pounds), and did 
strike the pilot-house with great force, besides breaking 
the turret-plates in its passage. But what of all this? 
When iron meets iron, (as when Greek meets Greek), then 
comes the tug of war ; and it is not to be supposed that a 
shot, moving at the rate of say 1,500 feet per second, will 
strike an iron structure in its weakest part and not dam- 
age it. 

" The simple facts of this loudly-trumpeted performance 
of the rebels are, that the shot which struck the Passaic 
did not endanger her safety in the least ; for all the effect 
they had on her externally, she might have been fighting 
away till this hour, and, in reality, have been none the 
worse for it. We have examined the shot-marks on the 
Passaic, said to be sixty-eight in all, though Ave did not 
count them, and find an accurate representation of the 
Whitworth shot impressed in the turret in many places. 
If these much-boasted projectiles are not able to do any 
greater damage than they did, we may safely defy all the 
English iron-clads and their armaments. The Whitworth 
shot, or facsimiles of them, in a majority of cases, struck 
sidewaj's ; they reached the turret in all possible positions, 
and show very poor shooting on the part of the rebels. 
There were several bolts driven in on the turret, which 
injured the persons within ; but the majority of the indenta- 
tions and scars could be covered by and filled with a com- 

29 



450 THE AMERICAN NAVY. 

moil tea-saucer. These are, simply, the 'terrible' effects 
of the rebel shot. Now, what person possessing ordinary 
judgment and at all conversant with the properties of iron, 
could conscientiously report that the Monitors were unable 
to cope with artillery? For our own part, we assert that 
the favorable opinions hitherto expressed in regard to those 
vessels have been greatly strengthened, and we do not hesi- 
tate to say, that, with the present artillery, they can suc- 
cessfully defy any fort or any irbn-clad afloat. So far as 
the impregnability of their armor is involved, we would 
not hesitate an instant to confide our personal safety to 
the thickness of their walls. We have no desire to dispar- 
age any official in connection with this subject ; but, so far 
as the Monitors being disabled (except temporarily) in the 
late attack is concerned, we must avow our utter skepti- 
cism. The Passaic is the only iron-clad sent North ; ergo, 
the Passaic must be the one most injured. What injuries 
are those that merely indent iron plates ! and what ter- 
rible shot those must be which strike and leave no sign 
internally to tell the story of their spent force and impo- 
tent rage ! We think a much better sensational report 
could have been made on the occasion by writing the facts : 
How the minions of the rebel government did their utmost 
to demolish the Monitors, and how signally the} 7 failed ; 
how, backed and aided by English capital and skill, they 
hurled their powerful projectiles against the impenetrable 
iron-clads, and were worsted in the encounter ; how grandly 
those little vessels withstood the enemy's fury ; and how, 
saving one poor little egg-shell craft, they bore unflinchingly 
the most furious cannonading that was ever known in the 
shortest space of time. These features would have been 
worth commenting upon ; and were Ave in the rebels' situa- 
tion, we should prefer a naval assault to take any shape 
but that proceeding from a fleet of those vessels. Properly 
handled and armed, they can defy any ship now floating ; 
and improvements are being made which will render their 
utility past all doubt. 

Ci We have considered in this light merely the question 



THE AMERICAN NAVY. 451 

of the impregnability of the Monitors — supposed to he the 
first requisite of a modern war vessel. That they have 
other objectionable features, we do not deny ; but, taking 
them as representatives of fighting machines — the greatest 
offensive power in the very smallest compass — they can 
not be excelled, and the nation does well to estimate them 
among its stanchest defenses. 

" It is singular, in viewing the effects of the shot on the 
Passaic's turret, to note that they exhibit none of the char- 
acteristics of a plunging fire. The shot that ' scooped out 
a tremendous portion' of the top of the Passaic's turret, 
struck the pilot-house at nearly the same hight, showing 
that it must have been fired at point-blank range, or nearly 
60. So also those that struck the base of the turret — no 
marks are visible on the deck which would lead the ob- 
server to suppose that the missiles were fired from such an 
elevation as the barbette of Fort Sumter ; and we conjec- 
ture that the batteries on Morris Island and Battery Bee 
must have taken a hand in the engagement, although we 
think it is stated in the reports that those batteries were 
silent." 

Let it be remembered that every form of missile, shot, 
and shell which English skill and capital could supply was 
hurled at the Monitors in that fight, and at short range, 
and then, in the light of the foregoing statement, judge 
of their powers of endurance. Let it now be supposed 
that one of these our smallest Monitors were to engage 
such a ship as the English Warrior, and let us observe the 
combatants. Let them be placed so that each is within 
range of the other's guns. The Monitor carries two guns ; 
the Warrior has forty. Of the Monitor's guns, one is a 
fifteen-inch smooth-bore, the other a 200-pounder Parrott 
rifle. The Warrior has twenty-eight 68-pounder smooth- 
bores and twelve 100-pounder Armstrong rifles. First 
observe the difference in the surface which each presents 
to the other's fire when lying broadside opposed to broad- 
side. This would not often be the case in action, perhaps, 



452 THE AMERICAN NAVY. 

but it is the only method of making a comparison. The 
exact hight of the Warrior above the water is not known 
to the writer. The battery of the Gloire is said to be six 
feet above the water, and the lower battery of the Kor- 
mandie is eight feet, and these are said to be lower than 
in the English frigates, and too low for service in a rough 
86a. 

Without pretending to entire accuracy — nor is this nec- 
essary — it will probably be safe to estimate the sides of 
the Warrior as rising eighteen feet above the water, from 
the water-line to the top of her bulwarks. She is about 
three hundred and eighty feet long, and her broadside 
presents, therefore, in round numbers, 6,800 square feet to 
an enemy's fire. The small Monitors, such as those at 
Charleston, are two hundred feet long. Their decks are, 
at most, it is said, not more than twelve inches above the 
water, and this narrow strip of hull and the turret are all 
that is exposed. The turret is about twenty-two feet out- 
side diameter, by nine feet high, presenting a surface of 
not quite two hundred feet. The hull and the turret to- 
gether, then, offer a surface of about four hundred square 
feet to fire, compared with the more than 6,000 square feet 
of the Warrior's broadside. 

Here, then, is at once an immense advantage in favor of 
the Monitor. Her chances of being struck, at the distance 
of a mile, would be exceedingly small, while at that dis- 
tance the huge hull of the broadside frigate would be 
almost certainly hit by a majority of shots fired. It is 
doubtless true that the ships in action would not often 
thus be exposed broadside to broadside; and yet it would 
seem that this might be the Warrior's safest position, for 
her bow and stern are unprotected with armor, and are as 
vulnerable as any wooden ship. 

Let their comparative vulnerability be now considered. 
Experiment has conclusively shown that no gun now on 
board the Warrior, or any other European ship, can pierce 
the turret of a Monitor, or even materially injure her side. 
The bombardment from the Charleston forts has proved 



THE AMERICAN NAVY. 



453 



this beyond all contradiction. A Monitor, therefore, could 
not be materially injured by the Warrior's guns. On the 
other hand, the 200-pounder Parrott gun pierces armor 
like that of the Warrior with ease; the shot from the 
fifteen-inch gun pierced the Atlanta's armor, and a fifteen- 
inch gun has smashed plates much thicker than the armor 
of the English ship ; and we have the opinion of General 
Barnard, already quoted, that no sea-going, armored ship 
can withstand the shock of a fifteen-inch shot. 

All these facts go to show that the boasted Warrior 
would be overmatched by one of our small Monitors, like 
those at Charleston. This would inevitably be the case, if 
she were restricted to the use of her guns only. But it is 
said that such a frigate could easily run down and sink a 
Monitor. It should be remembered that the huge frigate, 
almost four hundred feet long, is unwieldy, while the 
Monitors, only half as long, are easily maneuvered. It 
requires, as is said, fifteen minutes to turn the Warrior, 
and it may be seen, therefore, that it is probably a very 
difficult instead of an easy thing for a long, heavy frigate 
to run down a Monitor. The attacking ship would be 
much more likely to miss her foe, and receive the fifteen- 
inch and 200-pounder rifled shot at short range. It is 
true, a slow Monitor can not pursue and capture a swift 
frigate like the Warrior; but when a pet ship of the 
English navy shall avoid a combat with a diminutive craft 
like a Monitor, it will do more to establish our supremacy 
on the sea, than to capture that frigate in battle. Should 
a European iron-clad ever visit our shores on a hostile 
errand, it will not endeavor to save itself from a Monitor 
by flight. In such a case the issue of battle must be tried. 
But the Warrior is, probably, not now the most formi- 
dable ship in the English navy. As none of those iron- 
clads have been yet tested in battle, it is impossible to 
judge correctly their comparative merits. There are some 
new frigates, however, of about the Warrior's size, whose 
armor over the battery is stated to be, for one five inches, 
for another five and a half inches, and for still another six 



454 THE AMERICAN NAVY. 

inches in thickness ; and these ships are reported to have 
a speed of about twelve knots per hour. This was on the 
trial trip, and, as with our own vessels, it will be much 
less in actual service. 

Let it now be supposed that the most formidable one 
of this class, with an armor six inches thick in the central 
portion of the ship, the vessel being of the "Warrior's size, 
were matched against one of our new Monitors, like the 
Agamenticus, the Monadnock, or the Miantonomoh. 

These Monitors have a side-armor, as is stated, of ten 
and a half inches in thickness, while the turrets are fifteen 
inches thick. ISTo shot yet fired, either here or in England, 
has penetrated such an armor as this ; and such an armor 
can not be placed upon a broadside ship of the common 
form : it would sink her at the dock. Between the English 
frigate Minotaur, part of whose armor is said to be six 
inches thick, and such a Monitor as the Agamenticus, 
there would be the same disparity before mentioned, in the 
surfaces exposed to shot. The Minotaur is more than four 
times the tunnage of such a Monitor, and while the deck 
of the Monitor lies almost level with the water, the Mino- 
taur presents her huge broadside high above the water-line, 
and four hundred feet long. The Monitor, besides having 
this immense advantage in the chances of being hit by 
shot, is herself invulnerable to any cannon now in use; 
while the fifteen-inch gun she carries smashes through a 
six-inch plate of the best French manufacture, and her 
Parrott shot goes through plates six inches and even nine 
inches thick. How, then, will the Minotaur withstand the 
Monitor's attack? 2>Tothing is plainer than that she can 
not do it with her guns. Can the frigate run the Monitor 
down ? It is useless to speculate upon the issue of such 
an experiment. The Monitors are also rams of a very 
formidable kind, and the broadside frigate, considering the 
effect of the Monitor's guns at short range, would, to say 
the least, be in as great peril as the American vessel. But 
if the Minotaur can not run down such a Monitor, and 
should choose to continue the combat, it is a matter of 



THE AMERICAN NAVY. 455 

certainty that she would be captured or sunk. But again : 
suppose any European ship of which we have any account, 
should engage the Dictator, now nearly ready for sea. 
Her side-armor, more than eleven inches thick, and her 
turret, fifteen inches, can not be pierced by any shot now 
known. 

She, too, lies almost level with the water, presenting a 
small mark to her adversary, and, with half the tunnage 
of the Minotaur, she has engines of 5,000-horse power, 
while English official papers, quoted in the North British 
Review, state the horse power of the Warrior's engines at 
1,250, and those of the Minotaur at 1,350. The Dictator, 
then, ought to be much the fastest vessel, but this must 
be determined by trial. Certainly, however, she can not, 
with such engines, be a slow ship. She is built especially 
for a ram, and she will carry two guns of no less power 
than the fifteen-inch gun and the 800-pounder Parrott, be- 
cause we know that we have those at command. But Mr. 
Ericsson is making his own guns for this new ship, and 
expects them to be more formidable than any now in use. 
Should he not succeed in this, we already have cannon for 
her that, in the opinion of our best engineer officers, no 
sea-going ship can withstand. What chance would tho 
Minotaur have with the Dictator? 

Or, finally, select the most powerful broadside ship in 
the English navy, and place her by the side of Mr. Webb's 
immense frigate and ram combined, the Dunderberg. Her 
size is ecpial to the Minotaur, or nearly so. Her turrets 
can not be penetrated ; her casemates and sides are as well 
protected as those of the English ships ; she will have 
engines of far greater power; and her guns will crash 
through any armor that a broadside ship can float. The 
reader can judge what the result of an engagement would 
be between any European ship now known, and either the 
Dictator, the Puritan, or the Dunderberg. 

Compared with their tunnage and displacement, these 
ships have, by far, the most powerful engines ever placed 
on a war ship. They ought to be the swiftest armed ves- 



456 TEE AMERICAN NAVY. 

Bels afloat. This remains to be tried. Should they prove 
bo, however, it is easy to see that England and France will 
once more be compelled to begin their navies anew, if 
they intend to attack the United States. 

Such is the navy which the United States government 
has created in a little more than two years ; and, gigantic 
and efficient as it already is, it is but the first step in our 
new career — only the earnest, the first fruits, of what the 
nation is capable of performing. American genius has not 
yet reached the limit of its inventive power, and we have 
no reason to fear that it will not hereafter, as it has hith- 
erto done, keep pace with the progress of Europe. 

Mr. Ericsson's invention not only saved the country in 
an hour of great peril, but it will revolutionize the struc- 
ture of war ships, for the Monitors and the big guns, 
smooth-bore and rifled, have rendered it certain that no 
broadside ship can cross the ocean which our vessels can 
not sink; and Mr. "Webb's monster sea-going ram seems 
likely to present another American idea, which will attract 
the attention of the world. 

The government has been severely criticised for con- 
structing so many Monitors, and no broadside and swift 
vessels. Events will probably vindicate the wisdom of 
those who have controlled the navy. The country needed, 
first of all, not so much swift ships, nor large ocean cruis- 
ers, to match the European navies, as batteries, for coast 
service, as nearly invulnerable as human skill and science 
then could make them. 

This want was undeniably met by the Monitors better 
than it could have been by any other vessels yet known. 
It needed, at the same time, gun-boats for the rivers. It 
will be conceded that these have done admirable service, 
and, so far as yet appears, the best of them will be used 
as models for future fleets. The broadside type of iron- 
clads was followed in the New Ironsides, and, notwithstand- 
ing she is one of the finest frigates of this class afloat, 
yet, as the improvements in cannon show how easily her 
armor can be pierced, no one will regret that these experi- 



THE AMERICAN NAVY. 457 

merits in .artillery have been made before we had expended 
$250,000,000, as England has done, in constructing broad- 
Bide ships. If a fleet of iron-clad broadside ships is 
needed at any time hereafter, we can construct it with all 
the added light derived from the experiments of the 
world. 

The country needed swift wooden cruisers for the work 
of the blockade, and the Navy Department has furnished 
from its own yards some of the fastest ships that float — 
vessels that overhaul the swiftest blockade-runners that 
ever left an English port; and these ships are the begin- 
ning of a new class of American ships which, in speed and 
power <>!' armament, are not yet matched elsewhere. Hav- 
ing produced such a navy in a little more than two years, 
and which is only the germ of the future American navy, 
with a commercial marine already greater than that even 
of England, with unlimited resources at command, with 
two great oceans washing a coast-line of thousands of 
miles, nothing seems too great to anticipate in regard to 
the future naval power of America. 

We want, however, no fleets for conquest ; we have no 
wish to interfere with the affairs of other nations — as Eng- 
land and France have threatened, and still desire, in regard to 
us — and enough is already known to show them that, until 
some new war ship shall be invented in Europe, no fleet 
can be sent to invade us that can not be destroyed with the 
means we already have ; and we may feel entire confidence 
that the genius of our inventors and the skill of our work- 
men will hereafter devise ships and guns that will protect, 
on every sea, the Stripes and Stars, which will represent, 
hereafter, a Free and Christian American Nation. 

Since the foregomg chapter was written, letters have 
been addressed to the Secretary of the Navy, upon the 
subject of the Monitors and the fifteen-inch guns, by three 
of our most distinguished naval officers — Commo.dore Itod- 
gers, Commodore Porter, and Admiral Dahlgren — whose 
opinions are so important that extracts from them are 



458 THE AMERICAN NAVY. 

added here, for the views of such men in high official sta- 
tions should he considered as decisive upon suhjects with 
which they are perfectly familiar. Every American will 
feel encouraged, in regard to the present and future of the 
American navy, by these letters, while they can not fail to 
make a profound impression on Europe. 

In describing the difference between the ordinary ship 
and the Monitor model, Commodore Rodgers says: 

" In the Ironsides class, the hull of a wooden man-of-war, 
as constructed for general purposes, is clad with iron. It 
is true, some modification of shape and increase of size is 
required to meet the additional weight which she has to 
carry; but still, in essentials, she is a vessel of the ordi- 
nary model ; she has the advantage of ample quarters for 
her crew, with free access to her decks in storms ; with 
natural ventilation ; with abundance of light ; with numer- 
ous guns, giving her a rapidity of fire unattainable in a 
Monitor, and essential in battering forts ; and she is as able 
to carry canvas as other men-of-war. 

" The Monitor class, as far as I know, is new. If I un- 
derstand the idea, it is to cut oft* all the surface above 
water, except that which may be necessary to flotation, and 
to carry the guns in a revolving turret, or turrets, near 
the center of motion, supported upon the keel and kel- 
sons. 

" The plans upon which Mr. Ericsson has worked out 
this idea of his may be modified by further experience ; 
but the idea itself will be employed while iron-clad ves- 
sels are used in warfare." 



He describes the advantage of the Ericsson model as 
follows : 

" It has these advantages : 

" The Monitor has the least possible surface to be plated, 
and therefore takes the least possible tunnage to float 
armor of a given thickness, or, with a given tunnage, 



THE AMERICAN NAVY. 459 

allows the greatest possible thickness of armor, and, con- 
sequently, the greatest possible impregnability. The ability 
to carry armor is proportionable to the tunnage, but the 
Monitor of 844 tuns has actually thicker plating than the 
Ironsides of 3,480 tuns, and than the "Warrior of 6,000 ; 
and yet the Ironsides and Warrior have only the middle 
portion of their hulls plated, their ends being merely of 
wood without armor. 

" The guns of the Monitors, near the center of motion, 
are supported upon the keel and kelsons, upborne by the 
depth of water under them, and carried by the whole 
strength of the hull. 

" In Monitors heavier guns are, therefore, practicable 
than can ever be carried in broadside out upon the ribs of 
a ship. 

" In the Monitors, concentration of guns and armor is 
the object sought. 

" In them the plating is compressed into inches of ele- 
vation ; while in the Ironsides class it is extended over 
feet; and the comparatively numerous guns distributed 
over the decks of the Ironsides class are molded into a 
few larger ones in the turrets of the Monitors." 

In speaking of the principle upon which the Monitors 
are armed, he says : 

" When power enough is required in the individual guns 
to crush and pierce the side of an adversary at a single 
blow, the most formidable artillery must be employed — ■ 
and fifteen-inch guns are the most formidable which, so 
far, we have tried ; but no vessel of the Ironsides class can 
carry these guns, and the Monitors actually do carry them. 
If target experiments are reliable, a shot from a fifteen- 
inch gun will crush in the side of any vessel of the Iron- 
sides class in Europe or America. A single well-planted 
blow would sink either the Warrior, La Gloire, Magenta, 
Minotaur, or the Bellerophon." 



460 THE AMERICAN NAVY. 

Commodore Porter says, also, that the Monitors roll 
very little in a seaway, and relates the following incident 
to show their steadiness. A bottle of claret, he says, re- 
mained standing for an hour on the dinner-table of the 
Weehawken at a time when no one could stand on the 
deck of her convoy, the Iroquois, a fine sea-boat, without 
holding on to the life-lines. 

Admiral Dahlgren declares that, to meet the wants of 
the government in this war, the Monitors are far better 
than the broadside models adopted by France and Eng- 
land; and that, if contractors had met the government 
demand, every Southern port would, ere this, have been 
in our possession. 

Commodore Porter says that, with one of our Monitors, 
he could begin at Cairo, and, going down the Mississippi, 
destroy every vessel we have on the Western waters, unless 
they should escape by flight. 

Commodore Podgers states his conclusions as follows : 

" To sum up my conclusions, I think that the Monitor 
class and the Ironsides class are different weapons, each 
having its peculiar advantages — both needed to an iron- 
clad navy — both needed in war ; but that, when the Moni- 
tor class measures its strength against the Ironsides class, 
then, with vessels of equal size, the Monitor class will 
overpower the Ironsides class ; and, indeed, a single Moni- 
tor will capture many casemated vessels of no greater indi- 
vidual size or speed : and as vessels find their natural 
antagonists in forts, it must be considered that upon the 
whole the Monitor principle contains the most successful 
elements for plating vessels for war purposes. 

" I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedi- 
ent servant, 

" John Podgers, Commodore U. S. N. 

" Hon. Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy." 

The importance of these statements from experienced 



THE AMERICAN NAVY. 461 

naval officers, who have been eye-witnesses of the perform- 
ance of the Monitors, and the effect of the shot of the 
fifteen-inch guns, can not be overrated. They seem to in- 
sure our nation from foreign attack, at least, until great 
changes are made in naval war. No ship of the broad- 
side class, Commodore Eodgers thinks, can carry a fifteen- 
inch gun safely, while the Monitors do carry them; and 
one well-directed shot from one of these guns, he says, 
would sink any broadside vessel, even the last and most 
powerful ones of England or France. 

Every American should reflect upon the bearing which 
these facts have upon the future of our nation. It is 
proved, beyond dispute, that we can build vessels of the 
Monitor class which can traverse, safely, the whole Amer- 
ican coast, which no artillery carried on a broadside ship 
can penetrate, while the cannon which a Monitor can carry, 
and with which even our small Monitors are armed, can 
sink any broadside ship that floats. 

The fleets of France and England can not, therefore, 
approach our coasts without almost certain destruction. 
Such a ship as the Dictator, or the Puritan, according to 
the opinions stated by these eminent officers, would be 
able to destroy the whole iron-clad navies of France and 
England, if their ships could be encountered singly, and 
the only danger from a squadron would be that of being 
run down. The solution of a mathematical problem is not 
more certain than that even such a Monitor as the Ca- 
tawba, now lately launched at Cincinnati, would destroy 
any ship in the British or French navy, unless (a thing 
most improbable) she could be run down before she could 
use her guns. The side-armor of the Catawba, a ship of 
about eleven hundred tuns, is equal to ten inches of solid 
iron on the hull above the water-line, while her turret is 
eleven inches thick, and she is, therefore, absolutely invul- 
nerable to any artillery which a broadside ship can carry. 

The government, then, has acted most wisely in adopt- 
ing the Monitors for its present need. They have secured 
Jie nation against foreign attack, and rendered it certain 



462 THE AMERICAN NAVY. 

that, within the lines defended by these impregnable float- 
ing batteries, we can safely develop our national life, free 
from all external danger. 

In the mean time the two finest broadside iron-clads in 
the world have been built in America — the Ironsides and 
the Italian frigate; aiid we are able to produce any form 
of vessel which the nation may need, and to any extent 
that may be required. 



TIIE ARMIES OF ENGLAND, FRANCE, AND AMERICA. 463 



CHAPTER XXXVII. 



THE ARMIES OF ENGLAND, FRANCE, AND AMERICA. 

The reported numerical strength of the armies of the 
four great powers which are under discussion, is, in round 
numbers, as follows : 

France, .... 500,000 

England,. .... 200,000 

Russia, .... 950,000 

United States, North and South, say, . 900,000 

These figures, though obtained mainly from official 
sources, do not, of course, express the exact truth. They 
merely present, in a general way, the relative military 
strength of these nations. Each of them could command 
a far greater number to resist an invasion of its territory, 
while neither could send from home, on distant service, 
one-fourth of the number here set down. France and 
Russia could maintain large armies on the fields of Europe, 
but neither they, nor any other power, could send a for- 
midable force to operate here. 

Still, with France controlling Mexico and Central Amer- 
ica, it might be possible, at any time, with a French army 
as a nucleus, to assemble a very formidable force upon our 
Southern borders. 

The character of the Russians, as soldiers, has been 
already considered, because Americans should know the 
quality of those who, alone, among all nations, can now 



464 THE ARMIES OF ENGLAND, FRANCE, AND AMERICA. 

be regarded as our cordial friends, and whose interests 
may yet ally them with us, against the central despotisms 
of Europe. 

The soldiers of France and England have written their 
own history on the battle-fields of modern Europe, and 
their distinguishing traits are known to all. None will 
dispute their courage or their skill. Those who expect to 
meet them with success, must be masters of the science 
of slaughter. 

But America is now, for the first time, assuming the 
character and position of a great military power. For 
the first time we have gathered great armies, and have 
fought battles on a scale proportioned to the great con- 
flicts of Europe. It is, therefore, important to inquire, 
whether our armies and our soldiers have exhibited an 
individual, a national -character? Can we speak of the 
American soldier and the American army as having char- 
acteristics of their own, distinctive and peculiar'.'' If we 
can, what are the military traits of the American nation ? 
Are they such as give us confidence in our ability to meet 
the troops of other nations should they invade our shores? 

In attempting to answer this question, it will be assumed 
as certain, that this rebellion will soon be over, and our 
military strength will be drawn from the whole territory 
of the Union, and from every portion of the population. 

This being so, the armies of the United States will, 
hereafter, be drawn from the following elements : the white 
population of the North, the whites of the South, the 
blacks both North and South, and the foreign population. 
The foreign element in our armies requires but a passing 
notice. These soldiers will certainly be equal to those of 
Europe, while we have every reason to expect that those 
who are to come, like those who are already among us, 
will exhibit, under the influence of free institutions, a 
higher form of manhood than their countrymen who re- 
main behind. 

When the proper manhood of the blacks is fully ac- 
knowledged, and their rights as citizens are sanctioned and 



THE ARMIES OF ENGLAND, FRANCE, AND AMERICA. 465 

protected by law and by practice, we can easily draw from 
them, at any time, an army of two hundred and fifty thou- 
sand men, and perhaps double that number in case of a 
pressing emergency. The war, by the emancipation of 
the slaves, will add this to our effective fighting force, and 
enough is already known of these soldiers, from the sternest 
experience of battle, to show that, with proper encourage- 
ment and discipline, they will not be inferior to any. 

Great injustice will be done to the race if we judge 
them only by what they have done when they have barely 
escaped from the brutehood of slavery, with all its crush- 
ing influences still bearing them down; but even in this 
condition their record has been a noble one, and we know 
that, if we do our duty, if, as a nation, we prove true to 
God and humanity, we shall have at our disposal an im- 
mense force, which will be invaluable to us should Louis 
Napoleon compel us to operate upon our Southern border, 
or in Mexico. 

Two hundred and fifty thousand stalwart men, who can 
brave unharmed both the Southern malaria and the yellow 
fever, and guided by skillful officers, would present a very 
effectual barrier to all the schemes of France in Mexico. 
These black soldiers are to form a most important ele- 
ment hereafter in the American army and navy, and, al- 
though their capabilities have not yet been fully tested, what 
they have already done gives noble promise for the future, 
and it is perhaps not fanatical to believe that God has 
delivered them just at the time when they will be needed 
most for the defense of the country which they have en- 
riched by their toils, their blood, and their tears. 

JS r o candid man, even at the North, will deny that the 
Southern troops have fought, in general, with desperate 
courage; all will confess that their chief leaders have ex- 
hibited skill, daring, and energy, while the fortifications 
of the Southern cities are, for the purpose designed, mas- 
terpieces of engineering science. These cpialities, these 
talents, this skill and science, now used for the destruction 
of the Republic, are all American, and will in the future 
30 



466 THE ARMIES OF ENGLAND, FRANCE, AND AMERICA. 

all be available for the defense of the country against a 
common foreign foe. Probably no troops were ever burled 
with more impetuous bravery upon defensive lines, tban 
was Lee's army at Gettysburg, or Bragg's at Cbickamauga. 
The rusb of the successive assaults was more like tbe 
spring of the tiger tban the march of columns, and of a 
tiger foiled and hurled back, only to spring again. 

There is an intensity of passion in the Southern charge 
that gives the utmost possible effect to the material power, 
and which, it is thought, will scarcely find a parallel in 
the movements of any of the regular troops of Europe. 
Americans would not expect that the veterans of Lee and 
Longstreet would be defeated by an equal number of the 
best soldiers of any nation in Europe. The defense of 
Fort Wagner was a marvelous instance of persistent he- 
roism, certainly not often surpassed in the history of war. 
Such a terrible storm of shot and shell as swept over and 
into, and tore through those defenses, man never saw 
before, and yet the garrison held bravely out, till forced 
to evacuate by a regular siege. History surely has not 
many stories like that of the defense of Sumter, where 
such an immense work was defended till its massive ma- 
sonry was all leveled with the sea, a heap of rubbish, and 
yet the flag was kept defiantly hoisted over its founda- 
tion-stones. This engineering skill, and this unyielding 
tenacity of courage, are all to be available for the defense 
of the future American nation. They are examples of 
what the South will do in a better cause, and supported 
by the sympathies and arms of the North. They admon- 
ish Europe of the reception which invaders will meet. 

"What this fiery semi-barbarism which slavery has pro- 
duced will yet become, when quickened by general intel- 
ligence, and balanced and molded by free institutions, and 
when its energy springs from principle instead of passion, 
does not now appear; but none can doubt that it will be 
a nobler and more reliable power than it now is — a firmer 
basis on which to build a nation. 

The Southern people have borne the privations and 



THE ARMIES OF ENGLAND, FRANCE, AND AMERICA. 467 

hardships to wliicli they have been subjected, through the 
desolations of war and the rigor of the blockade, with a 
firm endurance that awakens admiration in all who forget 
the atrocity of their treason and the savage cruelty of 
their spirit; and the wretched food and clothing of the 
rebel soldiers often astonish our Northern men, presenting 
an appearance of extreme hardship heroically borne ; but 
it may be doubted, perhaps, whether the common people 
and the private soldiers suffer as severely as many suppose. 
They know little or nothing of the comforts and luxuries 
of Northern homes; most of them have lived in the log 
hut only, and have been accustomed to the coarsest food, 
and to little variety in that. 

Their endurance of hardship partakes more of the sullen 
indifference of the savage than the lofty heroism of the 
cultivated man; and yet, with all needed deductions, the 
people of the South have exhibited qualities which, when 
cleansed from the defilement and curse of slavery, and 
ennobled by the influences of freedom, will become a 
mighty power in the State. 

The worst condition of the rebel soldier is not so far 
below his ordinary home-life, as the best aspect of a camp 
is inferior to the every-day comforts of the home of the 
Northern laborer; and, therefore, with far better fare, the 
actual privations of the Northern soldier have been greater, 
and the endurance which springs from true heroism has 
been more fully exhibited by the army of the North. 

The true American life is found only in the free States, 
and the army of the North is the only true representative 
of the military power of the Republic — the American na- 
tion of the future; because this Northern life-power will 
assimilate and mold after its own image the whole mate- 
rial of the nation. The vital force of the free States will 
energize and transform the whole population, and the 
nation will be quickened, guided, and glorified by the 
indwelling spirit of Christian freedom. Among the pecu- 
liar traits of the real American army, the most prominent 
_s its intelligence. In this respect it stands alone among 



468 THE ARMIES OF ENGLAND, FRANCE, AND AMERICA. 

armies. It has been drawn from the whole population, 
and every class, and all forms of business, and all mechan- 
ical arts have their representatives in every Northern 
regiment. Such an army is not a mere aggregation of 
human puppets or machines under the direction of an 
engineer in shoulder-straps, but it is a body of thousands 
of individual thinkers, combining thought, skill, and expe- 
rience, for a common purpose. A majority of Northern 
regiments could furnish from their ranks mechanics that 
could build or repair a locomotive, or construct a bridge 
or a steamboat, or repair a watch; and with them are 
associated lawyers, and physicians, and ministers, printers, 
editors, painters, and authors. No army ever gathered 
before has embodied such an amount of educated, think- 
ing power, and such a variety of gifts and attainments. 

It is not only a fighting engine, but it is a thinking ma- 
chine of the highest order. And precisely those qualities 
from which the aristocrats of Europe, and the slave-lords 
of the South, predicted its ruin, have made it the most 
admirable army of the world. They predicted that such 
men would not tight. The slave-owner, blinded by his 
own false system, believed that common soldiers must be 
half-brute, half-savage, in order to be brave, and that an 
officer must be a tyrant in order to command. 

The nobility of Europe have adopted a military maxim 
suited to their ideas of man, and their false notions of 
courage : " the worse the man the better the soldier," and, 
therefore, they, too, believed that the men of the North 
would not fight, and would be scattered by the fiery onset 
of a Southern army. They forgot that the highest forms 
of courage, the sternest and most persistent bravery, 
spring directly from intelligence and principle. They 
ought to have known that these are stronger than passion, 
or hate, or revenge. They thought that these freemen of 
the North, accustomed to no restraint, and insisting upon 
thinking for themselves, would submit to no discipline, 
and that the Northern army would be only an armed mob. 
The first letter-writers and observers from Europe, having 



THE ARMIES OF ENGLAND, FRANCE, AND AMERICA. 4G9 

known only the machine-movements of military puppets, 
saw only tumult, disorder, and inefficiency in the North- 
ern troops. 

They knew nothing of the true nature of freedom. They 
ought to have known that what they saw, and censured so 
eagerly, were indications of real power, and that the intel- 
ligence of these men would, of itself, soon render them 
the most obedient of soldiers, because they would obey 
from principle, and as a means of safety and success. 

Perhaps the peculiar and sterling qualities of American 
troops have never been exhibited under circumstances 
which could test more severely the spirit of men, than by 
the Army of the Potomac. Since its first organization 
after the battle of Manassas, it has shown no cowardice, 
no faltering in the face of an enemy, nor in the perform- 
ance of any duty ; it has fought more than half of the 
great and bloody battles of the war, and, though never 
wholly defeated, it has never been completely victorious. 
Victory, fairly earned by its own valor, has been repeatedly 
lost to them by the incompetency or treachery of some of 
its commanders, and yet it has maintained its faithfulness, 
its discipline, its courage, and its confidence in itself and 
in its cause. 

Its steadfast courage is based on intelligence and prin- 
ciple, and therefore it survives disaster, and springs up 
afresh after the severest disappointment. The career of 
the Army of the Potomac is, in many respects, a mortify- 
ing one, and yet it is a very noble exhibition of the mili- 
tary capabilities and qualities of the freemen of the North, 
and to it yet may be given, as its final reward, the crown- 
ing victories of the war. 

These qualities have been exhibited in a more brilliant 
light by the armies of the West, because they have been 
more ably and faithfully led, and therefore led to victory. 
Many suppose there are marked differences between East- 
ern and Western troops. The freer, more expansive life 
of the West gives somewhat more, perhaps, of impetu- 
osity to the men of the West; but wherever Eastern and 



470 THE ARMIES OF ENGLAND, FRANCE, AND AMERICA. 

"Western troops have been associated, they blend at once 
into one homogeneous mass, and all differences vanish, 
and no one coutd tell, from their manner of fighting, 
whether they came from the prairies or the New England 
hills. 

Eastern and Western soldiers have fought under very 
similar circumstances, with results so similar as to forbid 
either boasting or complaint. They sustained alike the 
honor of our flag. Gettysburg and Chickamauga were not 
only the great battles of the war, but, in each case, the 
best troops of the South were matched against the best 
of the North. The North and the South were fairly 
represented on these bloody fields, and the main features 
of the fighting were the same. One was fought mainly by 
Eastern troops, and the other mostly by soldiers of the 
West. In each battle the fiery and yet orderly rush of the 
Southern veterans, led by their most trusted generals, was 
checked and rolled back with terrible slaughter by the 
persistent firmness, the long-enduring courage and skill of 
the Northern troops ; and the two battles were a true type 
of the war. 

The Southern charge comes with the sweep and roar of 
a headlong torrent, but the Northern lines are granite, 
upon which it dashes and breaks. The men of the West 
fought, it is true, under great disadvantage at Chicka- 
mauga. They were outnumbered nearly two to one from 
the first, according to the statement of General Rose- 
crans, and nearly half of the army on the second day was 
shaken from its position; but the left, under Thomas, 
showed the true qualities of Northern soldiers, by hurling 
back charge after charge of Longstreet's chosen men, the 
very elite of the Southern army, and in numbers more than 
double their own, and compelling them to withdraw after 
five hours of the bloodiest fighting of the war. 

In these two battles the fighting qualities of the North 
and South were tested, with the advantage of numbers on 
the side of the South, and with results that show the supe- 
rior steadfastness and endurance of Northern troops. The 



THE ARMIES OF ENGLAND, FRANCE, AND AMERICA. 471 

South will not believe, hereafter, that it can beat a North- 
ern army on an equal field. 

Nor are Northern soldiers at all deficient in those quali- 
ties which most distinguish the armies of the South. The 
storming of Fort Donelson, the rush of Grant's army round 
to the rear of Vicksburg, and the running of the batteries 
at New Orleans, Port Hudson, and Vicksburg, have not 
been matched by any Southern exploit, while the history 
of war scarcely shows any thing more brilliant than the 
dash up the steeps of Mission Eidge, and the storming of 
Lookout Mountain. The South has performed nothing 
which can bear comparison with these, and the military 
superiority of the North has, at length, been fully estab- 
lished. 

The conclusion, then, which is fairly reached from the 
facts presented, is, that the American nation will be able, 
at any time after this rebellion is over, to command an 
army, in numbers, in variety of its qualifications, and in 
effective power, that will, to say the least, be second to 
that of no other nation, and abundantly sufficient for our 
complete protection. With this army, and with our new 
navy, with exhaustless supplies of all kinds, whether of 
food or munitions of war, with railways and navigable 
rivers which enable us to concentrate troops and supplies 
when and where they are needed, we shall come forth from 
this struggle a great military power, quite able not only 
to defend ourselves from attack, but to compel the powers 
of Europe to relinquish all pretensions to this Western 
"World. 

There are many, who are decidedly in favor of prose- 
cuting the war until the last vestige of rebellion is swept 
away and the authority of the government is re-established 
over every foot of our territory, who, nevertheless, are 
exceedingly anxious in regard to the future, expecting, 
after the close of the war, a long period of depression for 
eveiy branch of industry, and general commercial disaster. 
They know that the country will then be burdened with 
an enormous debt, and they think that the South, being 



472 THE ARMIES OF ENGLAND, FRANCE, AND AMERICA. 

desolated by the war, the supply of her great staples cut 
off, the producing power of the North largely diminished 
by the destruction of life, our resources in measure ex- 
hausted, and our currency at the same time largely inflated, 
there must be a season of universal prostration and em- 
barrassment. 

Others, however, take a far more hopeful view of the 
future, and believe that the country will pass out of the war 
almost immediately into a more prosperous state than it 
has ever known. It is admitted that the South will be left 
by the war a comparative desert ; that she will be stripped 
of nearly all the accumulations of her previous life; she 
will be destitute of almost every article that belongs to 
civilized life. 

The land, however, remains undiminished in fertility, 
and even refreshed by its rest, and the laborers of the South 
have been mostly preserved, by the good providence of God, 
amid the ravages of the war, and that which oppressed 
labor and hindered production has been taken out of the 
way. It can not be doubted that, so soon as the labor 
system of the South can be reorganized upon the princi- 
ples of a free society, the production of Southern sta- 
ples will be increased far beyond what it was before the 
war. And when we consider that this reorganization has 
already begun, and is making rapid progress ; that thou- 
sands of plantations of sugar and cotton will be wrought 
by free laborers this very year ; and that this process of 
reconstruction will go forward almost equally with the 
progress of the war, it will be seen that, immediately and 
before the war closes, the great staples of the South will 
begin to reappear in the markets of the world. As fast as 
territory is reconquered and made secure, it will be occu- 
pied by the superior producing power of free labor, and the 
prosperity of peace will thus gradually return with the 
decline of the war, and there will be no abrupt and disas- 
trous transition from a state of war to a condition of peace. 

The waste of the South is, indeed, to be repaired ; her 
railroads are to be reconstructed and furnished anew ; tools 



THE ARMIES OF ENGLAND, FRANCE, AND AMERICA. 473 

and machinery, dwellings and household furniture are to 
be supplied for the whole country which the war has swept 
over; but the teeming soil, under the wise culture of free 
labor, will pay for it all ; and the supply of these wants for 
so vast a territory will furnish full and profitable employ- 
ment for Northern capital, skill, and labor, as the return 
of peace shall diminish the demand for the material of war. 
The manufacture of locomotives and cars, and sugar-mills 
and cotton-gins, of agricultural machinery, and tools of all 
kinds, of dwellings and furniture, of steamboats for our 
Southern and Western rivers, will take the place of the 
work of the government, while the products of the South 
will be ready to pay for all. Under the system of North- 
ern industry, moreover, this Southern trade will be as safe, 
and will pay as promptly as that of the North. It will 
aid us to form a correct estimate of the condition of 
the country after the war, and of the ability which the 
nation will then have to pay interest and principal of its 
debt, and to expand with a sure and healthy growth, if 
we study the rate of progress at which the country has 
advanced thus far, and the amount and character of our 
resources. 

Fortunately, the statistical information which has been 
gathered by the government, and by individual effort, is 
so varied, so full, and so exact, as to present with accuracy 
the actual progress and present condition of the nation, 
and from these facts the future may be safely predicted. 
In September, 1863, an International Statistical Congress 
assembled at Berlin, at which Hon. Samuel B. Buggies, of 
New York, was present as a delegate from the United 
States, and presented a report, which is a condensed his- 
tory of the progress and condition of this country. From 
this the reader will be enabled to see what resources we 
shall probably have at our disposal for the next quarter 
of a century, for the payment of our debt, and for general 
national progress. Some extracts from this report are here 
given : 



474 THE ARMIES OF ENGLAND, FRANCE, AND AMERICA. 

" I. The territorial area of the United States at the peace 
of 1783, then bounded west by the Mississippi River, was 
820,680 square miles, about four times that of France, 
which is stated to be 207,145, exclusive of Algeria. The 
purchase from France of Louisiana, in 1804, added to this 
area 899,680 square miles. Purchases from Spain, and from 
Mexico, and the Oregon treaty with England, added the 
further quantity of 1,215,907 square miles — making the total 
present territory 2,936,166 square miles, or 1,879,146,240 
acres. 

" Of this immense area, possessing a great variety of cli- 
mate and culture-, so large a portion is fertile, that it has 
been steadily absorbed by the rapidly increased population. 
In May last there remained undisposed of, belonging to the 
government of the United States, 964,901,625 acres. 

" To prevent any confusion of boundaries, the lands were 
carefully surveyed and allotted by the government, and are 
then granted gratuitously to actual settlers, or sold for 
prices not exceeding $1.25 per acre to purchasers other 
than settlers. It appears, by the report of the Commis- 
sioner of the General Land-office, a copy of which is here- 
with furnished, that the quantity surveyed and ready for 
sale in September, 1862, was 135,142,999 acres. The report 
also states, that the recent discoveries of rich and extensive 
gold-fields in some of the unsurveyed portions are rapidly 
filling the interior with a population whose necessities re- 
quire the speedy survey and disposition of large additional 
tracts. The immediate survey is not, however, of vital 
importance, as the first occupant practically gains the pre- 
emptive claim to the land after the survey is completed. 
The cardinal, the great continental fact, so to speak, is this : 
that the whole of this vast body of land is freely open to 
gratuitous occupation, without delay or difficulty of any 
kind. 

" II. The population of the United States, as shown by the 
census of 1860, was 31,445,080 ; of which number 26,975,575 
were white, and 4,441,766 black, of various degrees of color; 
of the blacks, 3>953,760 being returned as slaves. Whether 



THE ARMIES OF ENGLAND, FRANCE, AND AMERICA. 475 

any or what proportion of the number are hereafter to be 
statistically considered as ' slaves,' depends upon contingen- 
cies, which it would be premature at the present time to 
discuss. 

" The increase of population since the establishment of 
she government has been as follows : 

1790 . . . 3,929,827, 

1800 . . 5,305,937, increase . 35.02 per cent. 

1810 . . . 7,239,814, increase . 30.45 per cent. 

1820 . . , 9,038,191, increase . 33.13 per cent. 

1830 . . . 12,860,020, increase . 33.49 per cent. 

1840 . . 17,069,453, increase . 32.67 per cent. 

1850 . . . 23,191.876, increase . 35.87 per cent. 

1860 . . 31,445,080, increase . 35.59 per cent. 

" This rate of progress, especially since 1820, is owing, in 
part, to immigration from foreign countries. 
"There arrived in ten years — 

From 1820 to 1830 244,490 

From 1830 to 1840 552,000 

From 1840 to 1850 1,558,300 

From 1850 to 1860 2,707,624 



Total 5,062,414 

" Being a yearly average of 126,560 for the last forty 
years, and 270,762 for the last ten years. 

" The disturbances in the United States, caused by the 
existing insurrection, and commencing in April, 1861, have 
temporarily and partially checked this current of immigra- 
tion, but during the present year it is again increasing. 

" The records of the Commissioners of Emigration of 
New York show that the arrivals at that port alone have 
been for 

Total, indud'g 
From From all other 

Ireland. Germany. countries. 

1861 27,754 27,159 65,529 

1802 32,217 27,740 76,306 

1863, up to August 20, 7f months, 64,465 18,724 about 98,000 

" The proportions of the whole number of 5,062,414 arriv- 



476 THE ARMIES OF ENGLAND, FRANCE, AND AMERICA. 

ing from foreign countries, in the forty years from 1820 to 
1860, were as follows : 

From Ireland, 967,366 

From England, 302,665 

From Scotland, 47,800 

From AVales, 7,935 

From Great Britain and Ireland, . . 1,425,018—2,750,784 

From Germany, ...... 1,546,976 

From Sweden, 36,129 

From Denmark and Norway, .... 5,540 — 1,588,145 

From France, 208,063 

From Italy, 11,302 

From Switzerland, ..... 37,732 

From Spain, ....... 16,245 

From British America, ..... 117,142 

From China (in California almost exclusively), 41,443 

From all other countries, or unknown, . 291,558 — 723,485 

Total, 5,062,414 

" It is not ascertainable how many have returned to for- 
eign countries, but they probably do not exceed a million. 

" If the present partial check to immigration should 
continue, though it is hardly probable, the number of im- 
migrants for the decade ending in 1870 may possibly be 
reduced from 2,707,624 to 1,500,000. 

" The ascertained average increase of the whole popula- 
tion, in the seven decades from 1790 to 1860, which is very 
nearly 33 J per cent., or one-third for each decade, would 
carry the present numbers (31,445,080) 

By the year 1870 to . . . . • . . . 41,926,750 
From which deduct for the possible diminution of immi- 
grants, as above 1,207,624 

There would remain 40,719,126 

" Mr. Kennedy, the experienced Superintendent of the 
Census, in the Compend published in 1862, at page 7, esti- 
mates the population of 1870 at 42,318,432, and of 1880 
at 56,450,241. 

"The rate of progress of the population of the United 
States has much exceeded that of any of the European 
nations. The experienced statisticians in the present Con- 



THE ARMIES OP ENGLAND, FRANCE, AND AMERICA. 477 

gress can readily furnish the figures precisely, showing the 
comparative rate. 

" The population of France in 



1801 . . 27,349,003 
1821 . . . 30,461.875 
1831 . . 32,569,223 



1841 . . 34,230,178 
1851 . . . 35,283,170 
1861 . . 37,472,132 



Being about 37 per cent, in the sixty years. It does not 
include Algeria, which has a European population of 
192,746. 

" The population of Prussia has increased since 1816 as 
follows : 



1816 . . 10,319,983 

1822 . . . 11,664,133 

1834 . . 13,038,970 

1840 . . . 14,928,503 



1849 . . 16,296,483 
1858 . . . 17,672,609 
1861 . . 18,491,220 



Being at the rate of 79 per cent, in forty-five years. 
" The population of England and Wales was, in 

1801 • • 9,156,171 | 1841 . . 16,035,198 

1811 . . . 10,454,529 1851 . . . 18,054,170 

1821 . . 12,172,664 1861 . . 20,227 746 

1831 . . . 14,051,986 | 

" Showing an increase of 121 per cent, in sixty years, 
against an increase in the United States, in sixty years, 
of 593 per cent. 

"III. The natural and inevitable result of this great in- 
crease of population, enjoying an ample supply of fertile 
land, is seen in a corresponding advance in the material 
wealth of the people of the United States. For the pur- 
pose of State taxation, the values of their real and per- 
sonal property are yearly assessed by officers appointed by 
the States. The assessment does not include large amounts 
of property held by religious, educational, charitable, and 
other associations exempted by law from taxation, nor any 
public property of any description. In actual practice, the 
real property is rarely assessed for more than two-thirds 
of its cash value, while large amounts of personal property, 
being easily concealed, essape assessment altogether. 



4TS THE ARMIES OF ENGLAND, FRANCE, AND AMERICA. 

"The assessed value of that portion of property which 
is thus actually taxed increased as follows: In 1791 (esti- 
mated) $750,000,000 ; 1816 (estimated) $1,800,000,000 ; 1850 
(official valuation) $7,135,780,228 ; 1860 (official valuation) 
$16,159,616,068, showing an increase in the last decade 
alone of $9,023,835,840. 

"A question has been raised in some quarters as to the 
correctness of these valuations of 1850 and 1860, in em- 
bracing in the valuation of 1850 $961,000,000, and in the 
valuation of 1860 $1,936,000,000, as the assessed value of 
slaves, insisting that black men are persons and not prop- 
erty, and should be regarded, like other men, only as pro- 
ducers and consumers. If this view of the subject should 
be admitted, the valuation of 1850 would be reduced to 
$6,174,780,000, and that of 1860 to $14,223,618,068, leav- 
ing the increase in the decade $8,048,825,840. 

" The advance, even if reduced to $8,048,825,840, is suffi- 
ciently large to require the most attentive examination. 
It is an increase of property over the valuation of 1850 
of 130 per cent., while the increase of population, in the 
same decade, was but 35.99 per cent. In seeking for the 
cause of this discrepancy, we shall reach a fundamental 
and all-important fact, which will furnish the key to the 
past and to the future progress of the United States. It is 
the power they possess, by means of canals and railways, 
to practically abolish the distance between the sea-board 
and the wide-spread and fertile regions of the interior, 
thereby removing the clog on their agricultural industry, 
and virtually placing them side by side with the commu- 
nities on the Atlantic. During the decade ending in 1860 
the sum of $413,541,510 was expended within the limits 
of the interior central group, known as the ' food-export- 
ing States,' in constructing 11,212 miles of railway to 
connect them with the sea-board. The traffic-receipts from 
those roads were : 

In 1860 . $31,335,031 j In 1861 . $35,305,509 
In 1862 . . . $44,908,405 



THE ARMIES OF ENGLAND, FRANCE, AND AMERICA. 479 

" The saving to the communities themselves, in the 
transportation, for which they thus paid $44,908,405, was 
at least five times that amount, while the increase in the 
exports from that portion of the Union greatly animated 
not only the commerce of the Atlantic States, carrying 
those exports over their railways to the sea-hoard, hut the 
manufacturing industry of the Eastern States, that ex- 
change the fabrics of their workshops for the food of the 
interior. 

" By carefully analyzing the $8,048,825,840 in question, 
we find that the six manufacturing States of New England 
received $735,754,244 of the amount; that the middle At- 
lantic, or carrying and commercial States, from New York 
to Maryland, inclusive, received $1,834,911,579; and that 
the food-producing interior itself, embracing the eight 
great States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wiscon- 
sin, Minnesota, Iowa, and Missouri, received $2,810,000,000. 
This very large accession of wealth to this single group of 
States is sufficiently important to be stated more in detail. 
The group, taken as a whole, extends from the western 
boundaries of New York and Pennsylvania to the Mis- 
souri Elver, through fourteen degrees of longitude, and 
from the Ohio River north to the British dominions, 
through twelve degrees of latitude. It embraces an area 
of 441,167 square miles, or 282,134,688 acres, nearly all of 
which is arable and exceedingly fertile, much of it in 
prairie, and ready at once for the plow. There may be a 
small portion adjacent to Lake Superior unfit for cultiva- 
tion, but it is abundantly compensated by its rich deposits 
of copper and of iron of the best quality. 

" Into this immense natural garden, in a salubrious and 
desirable portion of the temperate zone, the swelling stream 
of population from the older Atlantic States and from Eu- 
rope has steadily flowed during the last decade, increasing 
its previous population from 5,403,595 to 8,957,690, an 
accession of 3,554,095 inhabitants gained by the peaceful 
conquest of nature, fully equal to the population of Sile- 



480 THE ARMIES OF ENGLAND, FRANCE, AND AMERICA. 

sia, which cost Frederick the Great the seven years' war, 
and exceeding that of Scotland, the subject of struggle 
for centuries. 

" The rapid influx of population into this group of 
States increased the quantity of the improved land, thereby 
raising farms, more or less cultivated within their limits, 
from 26,689,361 acres in 1850 to 51,826,395 in 1860, but 
leaving a residue to be improved of 230,398,290 acres. 
The area of 25,146,054 acres thus taken in ten years from 
the prairie and the forest is equal to seven-eighths of the 
arable land in England. 

" The effects of this influx of population in increasing 
the pecuniary wealth as well as the agricultural products 
of the States in question are signally manifest in the cen- 
sus. The assessed value of their real and personal prop- 
erty ascended from $1,116,000,000 in 1850 to §3,926,000,000 
in 1860, showing a clear increase of $2,810,000,000. We 
can best measure this rapid and enormous accession of 
wealth by comparing it with an object which all nations 
value, the commercial marine. The commercial tunnage 
of the United States 

In 1840 was . 2,180,764 tuns. | In 1850 was . 3,535,454 tuns. 
In 1860 was . . 5,358,808 tuns. 

" At $50 per tun, which is a full estimate, the whole pecu- 
niary value of the 5,358,808 tuns, embracing all our com- 
mercial fleets on the oceans and the lakes and the rivers, 
and numbering nearly thirty thousand vessels, would be 
but $267,940,000 ; whereas the increase in the pecuniary 
value of the States under consideration, in each year of 
the last decade, was $281,000,000. Five years' increase 
would purchase every commercial vessel in the Christian 
world. 

" But the census discloses another very important feature, 
in respect to these interior States, of far higher interest to 
the statisticians, and especially to the statesmen of Europe, 
than any which has yet been noticed, in their vast and 
rapidly increasing capacity to supply food, both vegetable 
and animal, cheaply and abundantly, to the increasing 



THE ARMIES OF ENGLAND, FRANCE, AND AMERICA. 481 

millions of the old world. In the last decade their cereal 
products increased from 309,950,205 bushels to 558,160,323 
bushels, considerably exceeding the whole cereal product 
of England, and nearly if not quite equal to that of France. 
In the same period the swine, which play a very important 
part in consuming the large surplus of Indian corn, in- 
creased in number from 8,536,182 to 11,039,352, and the 
cattle from 4,373,712 to 7,204,810. Thanks to steam and 
the railway, the herds of cattle that feed on the meadows 
of the Upper Mississippi are now carried, in four days, 
through eighteen degrees of longitude, to the slaughter- 
houses on the Atlantic. 

" It is difficult to furnish any visible or adequate measure 
for a mass of cereals so enormous as 558,000,000 of bushels. 
About one-fifth of the whole descends the chain of lakes, 
on which 1,300 vessels are constantly employed in the 
season of navigation. About one-seventh of the whole 
finds its way to the ocean through the Erie Canal, which 
has already been once enlarged for the purpose of passing 
vessels of two hundred tuns, and is now under survey, by 
the State of New York, for a second enlargement, to pass 
vessels of five hundred tuns. The vessels called ' canal- 
boats,' now navigating the canal, exceed five thousand in 
number, and, if placed in a line, would be more than 
eighty miles in length. 

" The barrels of wheat and flour alone, carried by "the 
canal to the Hudson River, were, 

In 1842 . . 1,146,292 | In 1852 . . 3,937,366 
In 1862 . . 7,516,397 

"A similar enlargement is also proposed for the canal 
connecting Lake Michigan with the Mississippi River. 
When both the works are completed, a barrel of flour 
can be carried from St. Louis to ISTew York, nearly half 
across the continent, for fifty cents, or a tun from the Iron 
Mountain of Missouri for five dollars. The moderate por- 
tion of the cereals that descends the lakes, if placed in 
barrels of five bushels each, and side by side, would form 

31 



482 THE ARMIES OP ENGLAND, FRANCE, AND AMERICA. 

a line five thousand miles long. The whole crop, if placed 
in barrels, would encircle the globe. Such is its present 
magnitude. We leave it to statistical science to discern 
and truly estimate the future. One result is, at all events, 
apparent. A general famine is now impossible ; for Amer- 
ica, if necessary, can feed Europe for centuries to come. 
Let the statesman and philanthropist ponder well the mag- 
nitude of the fact, and all its far-reaching consequences 
— political, social, and moral — in the increased industry, 
the increased happiness, and the assured peace of the 
world." 

These facts may well give us great confidence in the 
future of the United States, and dispel our fears of being 
crushed by the weight of our debt, or of being seriously 
embarrassed at the close of the war. Some of these state- 
ments and calculations are worthy of particular attention. 
It is estimated that our population in six years (in 1870) 
will be about 42,000,000 ; for the great increase, now prob- 
able in immigration, Avill prevent our general rate of ad- 
vance from being materially lessened by the waste of the 
war. Should we close the war in 1864, the national debt 
will not be far from $2,000,000,000. We shall have then, 
in 1870, a population from three millions to four millions 
larger than France, with about the same amount of debt, 
and with general resources far greater than hers. Our 
population will then be about ten millions larger than that 
of Great Britain, and our debt little more than half as 
great. 

But another important fact is, that, while the rate of 
increase of our population for the last decade was about 36 
per cent., the rate of increase of our wealth for the same 
period was 130 per cent. The wealth of the country in 
1860 was estimated at about fourteen thousand two hun- 
dred and twenty-five millions. If the same rate of increase 
should continue during this decade, the aggregate property 
of the United States in 1870 would be about equal to the 



THE ARMIES OF ENGLAND, FRANCE, AND AMERICA. 483 

present estimated wealth of Great Britain, while we shall 
have little more than half her debt. 

The war has destroyed an immense amount of property 
in the South ; but, in the meanwhile, the wealth of the free 
States has been increasing, probably, at a more rapid rate 
than ever ; for new inventions in agricultural machinery 
keep up the rate of production for our cereals, while they 
are selling at greatly enhanced prices. 

Such calculations can only be regarded as approximately 
correct ; but they may be so far relied upon as to give us 
great confidence in the future ability of the country to meet 
all its obligations, and to keep up, at least, the usual rate 
of progress. To these statements the report of the Com- 
missioner of the General Land-office should be added in 
regard to the metalliferous regions of the United States : 

" The report of the Commissioner of the Land-office shows 
on what a grand scale God has laid here the foundation of 
power, and provided abundantly all the elements of national 
greatness. The facts presented prove that our mineral 
wealth is in full proportion to the extent of territory, and 
that the supply of the precious metals in particular will 
meet every want of the country, even when its population 
shall amount to hundreds of millions; that it will supply a 
specie basis for the whole business of the continent when 
it shall be as densely populated as Europe, and when Amer- 
ica, placed between India and Europe, shall control the 
commerce of the ' exhausfless East,' when, through steam- 
ers on the Pacific, and railroads across the continent, our 
cities will be nearer to Asia than London or Paris. 

"Among the elements of national wealth and power, 
iron and coal hold, perhaps, the first place, inasmuch as 
both these must be so largely used hereafter, not alone 
in commerce and the arts, but in all the operations of 
war. 

" Upon this point the Commissioner's report is full of 
interest. He says : 



484 THE ARMIES OF ENGLAND, FRANCE, AND AMERICA. 

" ' The extent of the twelve coal-hearing States east of the Missis- 
sippi holds but a small proportion to the immense coal-fields west of 
that region, as wc have information reporting the existence of coal 
in Dacotah, Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, California, 
Oregon, and Washington.' 

"It is impossible to overestimate the importance of these 
immense coal-fields in the future progress of our country; 
and when we remember how coal is almost constantly asso- 
ciated with iron, we see on what a vast scale God has pre- 
pared the materials of civilization over millions of square 
miles, where these stored-up riches wait for the coming of 
the people. 

" The following statements in regard to the gold region 
will doubtless attract great attention. Though based on 
well-ascertained facts, they seem almost like fable : 

" ' It stretches on the western portion of the continent from 40° 
north latitude to 31° 30', and from the 102° of longitude to the 
Pacific Ocean, embracing portions of Dacotah, Nebraska, Colorado, 
all of New Mexico, with Arizona, Utah, Nevada, California, Oregon, 
and Washington Territory. Its breadth is about 1,100 miles from 
north to south, and of nearly equal longitudinal extension, making 
an area of more than a million of acres. This vast region is trav- 
ersed from north to south, on the Pacific side, by the Sierra Nevada 
and the Cascade Mountains, then by the Blue and Humboldt; on the 
east by the double ranges of the Rocky Mountains, embracing the 
Wasatch, Wind River chain, and the Sierra Madre, stretching lon- 
gitudinally and in lateral spurs — crossed and linked together by 
intervening ridges connecting the whole system by five principal 
ranges, dividing the country into an equal number of basins, each 
being nearly surrounded by mountains, and watered by mountain 
streams and snows, thereby interspersing this immense territory with 
bodies of agricultural lands equal to the support of not only miners, 
but of a dense population. 

" ' These mountains are literally stocked with minerals — gold and 
silver being interspersed in profusion over their immense surface, 
and daily brought to light by new discoveries. The precious metals 
are found embedded in mountains of quartz, rich washings marking 
the pathways of rivers and floods. Besides their wealth in gold, no 



THE ARMIES OF ENGLAND, FRANCE, AND AMERICA. 485 

part of the world is so rich in silver-mines as Nevada and New 
Mexico ; yet these may be estimated only in proportion to the gold- 
fields which are in process of development with amazing results. 
The recent discoveries in the Colorado region of California, and in 
the region stretching thence away up to and north of Salmon River, 
in Washington Territory, are every day stimulating the mining en- 
terprise of our people.' 

" In order to show what an amount of labor may find 
profitable employment in this mining region, the Commis- 
sioner states that what is called a claim, in the quartz re- 
gion, is one hundred feet square. If only one-hundredth 
part of the mountain district is suitable for mining, there 
will still be room for three million six hundred thousand 
claims. 

" By another estimate, based upon a calculation of Gov- 
ernor Evans, of Colorado, he shows that the gold-bearing 
region of our country will give employment to twenty mill- 
ions of miners. He says that quartz which yields $12 per 
tun will pay, under favorable circumstances. There is, 
however, much quartz which will yield from $20 to $500 
per tun. There is some which yields from $500 to $3,000 
per tun, and some recent discoveries are estimated as hi«-h 
as $20,000 per tun. 

" ' In addition to the deposits of gold and silver, various sections 
of the whole mineral region are rich in precious stones, marble, 
gypsum, salt, tin, quicksilver, asphaltum, coal, iron, copper, and 
lead; together with mineral, medicinal, thermal, and cold springs 
and streams. None of these mines have been worked for a great 
length of time, except the placers of California, and much the largest 
portion of them are comparatively recent discoveries ; yet the deeper 
the mine is worked, the richer is the ore or rock. Enormous profits 
are derived from operations at depths of 150 to 200 feet.' 

" The Commissioner states that, prior to the discovery 
of gold in 1848, the gold product of the world was only, 
on the average, $18,000,000 ; now the annual yield of our 
own mines is $100,000,000, and the working of our gold- 
bearing region has only just begun." 



486 THE ARMIES OF ENGLAND, FRANCE, AND AMERICA. 

The Commissioner estimates that " within ten years (from 
1863) the annual product of these mines in the precious 
metals alone will be two hundred millions of dollars ; and 
in coal, iron, tin, lead, quicksilver, and copper, half that 
sum." He says: "With an amount of labor relatively 
equal to that expended in California, applied to the gold- 
fields already known to exist outside of that State, the pro- 
duction even now, including that of California, would ex- 
ceed four hundred millions of dollars per year." He is 
confident that these mines may be relied upon to pay prin- 
cipal and interest of the national debt, besides supporting 
the government. These estimates do not appear extrava- 
gant to those who have made our mineral resources a sub- 
ject of study, and the facts should be known by the whole 
American people, in order to remove all anxiety in refer- 
ence to the future. 

A debt of $2,000,000,000 would require for the payment 
of its interest probably $100,000,000 annually. If, then, our 
other expenses are reduced to the proper rates of peace, 
can any man doubt our ability to provide for these amounts 
and an additional sinking-fund, which would extinguish 
our debt within a quarter of a century? The extent of our 
unoccupied lands, and their great fertility, and the in- 
creasing inducements for immigration, warrant the belief 
^hat the rate of increase of our population will be nearly 
as great for the next half-century as it has been in the last 
fifty years. Our ability to pay a debt may be compared 
with that of France, whose debt is equal to ours, or nearly 
so, and with that of England, who owes nearly twice as 
much as we, by compari ng our respective rates of progress. 
The population of France increased 37 per cent, in sixty 
years, ending in 1861, according to Mr. Ruggles. The in- 
crease of England and Wales was 121 per cent, in the same 
time ; while, in this period, the increase in the United 
States was 593 per cent. Mr. Kennedy, in his Compend- 
ium of the Eighth Census, estimates the population, twenty- 
six years from this time (1864), at more than seventy-seven 
millions. If this should prove true, it will add some forty- 



THE ARMIES OF ENGLAND, FRANCE, AND AMERICA. 487 

seven millions to the present population ; and Mr. Rugglea 
has shown that the rate in which wealth increases in thia 
country is about four times the rate of the progress of popu- 
lation ; and this rate of production would bring the aggre- 
gate wealth of the country in 1880 to more than seventy- 
five thousand millions of dollars. 

These calculations are based upon actual results already 
reached, and upon rates of progress which the country has 
as yet maintained, and which men of attainment and ex- 
perience assume are likely to be maintained in the future. 
The certain increase of the amount of the Southern sta- 
ples through free labor and machinery, our unlimited 
capacity for cereal production, our mineral wealth, our 
manufacturing and commercial resources, should convince 
all that the national debt will scarcely be felt in our future 
progress. It has been said by many that Europe will not, 
hereafter, purchase as largely as heretofore of our agricul- 
tural productions. It is evident, however, that unless new 
grain-fields are opened in the old world, its population 
must receive yearly more and more of its food from 
America; and, in regard to the supply of cotton, unless 
England and France can obtain elsewhere an article fully 
equal in quality to that of American growth, they must 
either buy our cotton or we shall manufacture it ourselves, 
and then they must meet us with our superior fabrics in 
the markets of the world. 

Let those who fear that national bankruptcy is approach- 
ing, consider what the material progress of the country 
must be for the next quarter of a century while nearly 
fifty millions are being added to our population. 

There are certain great improvements, of a national 
character, which are certain to be made before half that 
period has elapsed, if this war shall be speedily closed. 
At least one great trunk-line of railway will be finished 
to the Pacific, with Eastern branches reaching the North- 
ern lakes, the central Mississippi Valley, and the Southern 
sea-coast, and with lateral branches shooting out into the 
vast mineral regions of the far West. 



488 THE ARMIES OF ENGLAND, FRANCE, AND AMERICA. 

The railway intended to connect the Ohio Valley with 
East Tennessee and with Charleston will he finished, and 
the North Carolina Railway will he carried westward until 
it connects with some branch of the Pacific Road, and the 
now ruined railroads of the South will be put in complete 
order again. That internal coast-line of navigation, even 
now almost continuous from Long Island Sound to Florida, 
will be perfected by connecting the bays, sounds, and 
channels, until our coastwise commerce can pass from New 
York to Florida by this inland route, safe alike from an 
enemy, and fro'm ocean storms. There will be a ship- 
canal around the falls of Niagara, and from the lakes to 
the Mississippi, and the Ohio River will be rendered navi- 
gable through the year. In addition to this, the government 
must soon bring its mineral lands into the market in the 
same manner as it does all other lands, and give a title in 
fee to the purchaser. 

While these things are in progress, the tide of our popu- 
lation will set strongly in upon the South, and the mineral 
lands of the Western mountains, and industry will plant 
itself precisely where it is most needed to sustain our 
finances, where it will produce the great staples of the 
South and silver and gold as the basis of our currency, 
while, at the same time, the riches of the Eastern com- 
merce will flow in through the golden gate of California. 
Any amount of debt which this war can create will press 
lightly upon such a country as this will be, almost in the 
immediate future. 

Nor are any of the predictions so freely made, at home 
and abroad, in regard to future divisions of our country, 
likely to be fulfilled. 

No one of the great geographical divisions of the land 
is complete in itself. Each is a necessary part of one 
great whole. 

The mineral region, the great agricultural basins, the 
coast-lines for commerce on the two oceans, fronting Eu- 
rope and Asia, the long lines of hill-country for manufac- 
tures ; in the East the Alleghanies, stretching from Canada 



THE ARMIES OF ENGLAND, FRANCE, AND AMERICA. 489 

to central Alabama, and, in the far West, the Kocky 
Mountains and the Nevada, all bear a due proportion to 
each other, and stand so related to each other as to be 
bound inseparably together to form one grand national 
whole, in which each part, like members of a living body, 
will be necessary to all the rest. 

The manufacturers of the country will purchase the sta- 
ples of the South and the South-west. Commerce will 
make the exchanges, the agricultural regions will supply 
the food, and the mines will furnish the silver and the 
gold as the money basis of the whole ; and, bound together 
as we shall be by railways and canals, and all the inter- 
lacing bonds of kindred and business and social relations, 
warned by the experience of this rebellion, and having 
learned the value of a great nationality, we shall remain 
henceforth " one and inseparable." 



490 ENGLAND, FRANCE, RUSSIA, AND AMERICA: 



CHAPTER XXXVIII. 



SUMMARY OF THE RELATIONS OF ENGLAND, FRANCE, RUSSIA, AND AMfcRIC 
TO THE WORLD AND TO EACH OTHER. 



From what has been already stated, it is not difficult to 
see in what direction the great forces of the world are to 
be exerted in the future, and the bearing which the four 
powers named above will have upon the progress of civil- 
ization. 

France is the great military power of Western Europe. 
With Louis Napoleon and his political and military asso- 
ciates, this is the one ruling idea ; the chief, if not the 
sole object of every wile of state-craft, as well as every 
movement in war. The extending and consolidating the 
Papal power is with them a means to an end. The com- 
mon religious sentiment and the ties of race are being 
used to combine the Catholic nations into one grand organ- 
ization, with its head at Paris ; a vast military power, sup- 
ported by the prestige and authority of the Romish Church, 
and strong enough, as is hoped, to give civil and ecclesi- 
astical law to Europe, and perhaps, also, to this Western 
world. 

France desires manufactures and colonies, not for the 
benefit of the people, but to create a wealth which may 
support the army, the navy; and the splendor of the im- 
perial government. The people, like the slaves on a plant- 
ation, are regarded simply as machines for the production 
of wealth which the government may use. 



THEIR RELATIONS TO THE WORLD, ETC. 491 

The Emperor adorns his capital with regal magnificence ; 
he constructs such fortifications and dock-yards as those 
at Cherbourg; he creates navies and armies; he concen- 
trates, in short, all the wealth of the empire in the hands 
of the rulers whom he directs, but he does little or noth- 
ing for the education, the comfort, the general progress of 
the people. One fact, already stated, is a whole volume 
of history for France. Her population has increased only 
thirty-seven per cent, in sixty years. Sixty years ago she 
had more than twenty-seven millions of inhabitants ; she 
has about thirty-nine millions now. This shows conclu- 
sively how heavily the government policy presses upon the 
laboring classes, and how little hope the empire can have 
of keeping pace in growth with either Russia or America, 
and hence the need of seeking combinations of power 
which she can herself direct. 

The empire is, in no sense, of or for the people. The 
elections are simply a farce and an imposition. The Em- 
peror and his officers are the State ; they are France, the 
only France with which the world without has any rela- 
tions. The government has really no popular element in 
it ; the bayonets alone vote, and in accordance with the 
orders given. 

The government virtually owns say thirty millions of 
laborers, whose earnings, excepting only common food and 
clothing, it consumes in navies, armies, and in imperial 
pomp. 

Such, politically, is France : a military despotism, seek- 
ing to dominate both over Europe and America. The 
leaders of the Papal Church are, equally with the Empe- 
ror, intent upon the military aggrandizement of France ; 
but with them this military power is not an end, but a 
means to extend, in both hemispheres, the exclusive domin- 
ion of the Romish Church. Thus the Jesuits use the 
military strength of the empire to advance the Church, 
and Louis Napoleon, on his part, sustains the Church, 
and excites her ambition, and extends her influence, in 
order that he may use it all to create, consolidate, and 



492 ENGLAND, FRANCE, RUSSIA, AND AMERICA: 

secure a militaiy empire that shall, if possible, rule the 
world. Unless France is again revolutionized, she will 
very soon embody the three forms of despotism which 
have cursed the world : the ecclesiastical, the political, and 
the military. 

Should Louis Napoleon succeed in so allying all the 
Papal States of Europe to France that he could wield the 
military power of all combined, and then this force should 
be controlled by Jesuit statesmen, it would, of course, be 
used everywhere to repress free institutions, whether relig- 
ious or political; it would become, in both hemispheres, 
the most formidable foe of freedom and human progress 
that has arisen in modern times. 

The Papal Church is bound by her nature her princi- 
ples, and all her past history, to the monarchical form of 
government — to the theory that the people have no right 
of choice in rulers, nor authority to shape the laws by 
which they are governed ; her spirit is that of a despotism 
from which the people can have no appeal, and in this she 
can not change, for that would annihilate the Papacy, and 
sink it to the level of a mere religious denomination. The 
Romish Church must and will, from its very nature, com- 
pel obedience to itself as the only true Church, to the full 
extent of her power, and, therefore, the most alarming 
feature in the immediate future of Europe is the rapid 
growth of the military power of France, the swift yet 
steady increase of her political influence, and the old per- 
secuting power of the dark ages, now become a part of 
the empire's life, growing with its growth and strengthen- 
ing with its strength. 

}u> conspiracy so formidable as this has been formed 
for many centuries against popular civil rights and relig- 
ious freedom. Its ramifications already extend to every 
nation, but the two chief objects at which it proposes to 
strike are, Russia and the Greek Church in the East, and 
the American Republic, with its free institutions and its 
Protestant faith. 

The French occupation of Mexico, and the letter of the 



THEIR RELATIONS TO THE WORLD, ETC. 493 

Pope to Jeff. Davis, are inspired by the same spirit, a de- 
sire for the overthrow of this Republic. 

The traitor President has the sympathies both of the 
Emperor and the Pope, because they hope that, through 
him and their own efforts, this free Republic and the 
Protestant faith w T ill be destroyed together. Such is the 
France of to-day, aiming at the universal supremacy of 
the military empire and the Roman Catholic Church ; a 
double-headed despotism, ready to tread down the people 
of every land, occupying Mexico already as a point from 
whence to make its spring at the United States. 

It is only necessary to refer to the quotations already 
made, setting forth the condition of the laborers of Eng- 
land, to show that Great Britain, though boasting of a free 
constitution and chartered liberties, has, in the practical 
working of her policy, ground her people down with a 
more crushing despotism than that of France, and that, 
according to the showing of her own witnesses, there are 
very few countries in Europe where the condition of the 
laborers, as a whole, is as wretched as in England. 

Only about one million in England have the privilege 
of voting, or have any direct influence upon the laws or 
the government ; and this fact, with the other already 
stated on the authority of Mr. Kay, that in England fif- 
teen thousand persons own all the land, is quite sufficient 
to prove that the English system, whatever it may be in 
theory, in its practical working forces the laborers down 
to very near the level of the slave, and shuts up com- 
pletely the path of progress and the door of hope. As 
France uses her laborers as so much machinery for war 
and to aggrandize the government, the empire, so Eng- 
land employs her people to create wealth for the titled 
landholding few. England, then, is a despotism of wealth 
and rank; the government is a combination of capital and 
the titled and privileged few, to whose support the earn- 
ings of the laboring millions must contribute all except 
what is needed to support a life only a grade above that 
of the slave. 



494 ENGLAND, FRANCE, RUSSIA, AND AMERICA: 

The France and the England with which the world has 
to deal, whose diplomatic craft, whose armies and navies 
the world must meet, are alike the representatives and 
watchful defenders of despotism, seeking alike to establish 
or maintain everywhere governments in which the people 
have no controlling share — governments founded upon the 
theory that no rights whatever inhere in the people, that 
the laboring classes have no rights except such as the 
government chooses to bestow. To this theory the soul of 
the Holy Alliance, England, has constantly given assent 
by her acts, and, therefore, France and England both are 
the deadly foe of republican or democratic freedom, and 
represent and defend the old despotic forms of government 
that in all ages have cursed and trodden down the people. 

England is a despotism of the aristocracy, a tyranny of 
title and capital, which, in its workshops of Mammon, is 
grinding up the people as surely as the material upon 
which the machinery works, the mills and the agricultu- 
ral systems producing poverty and degradation as regu- 
larly as they do the cotton fabrics of Lancashire or the 
cutlery of Sheffield. 

These powers belong to a period now closing and pass- 
ing away, and they seek to retard, by all means, the 
progress of that new era of popular freedom which is 
dawning upon the nations. For this purpose they will 
probably unite their strength hereafter as they have hith- 
erto done, for it is difficult to see how England can safely 
separate from or oppose France in any of her ambitious 
schemes. The Papal element is strong, and growing 
daily stronger, in Great Britain, and it is at least very 
doubtful whether England could this day be induced to 
rally to the defense of the Protestant faith, against any 
attack which France might choose to make. The hazard 
is too great, and her enthusiasm for truth too small. 

Precisely as she left France to work her will in Mexico, 
and even encouraged her, knowing perfectly her designs, 
bo will she do hereafter, if her own interests can be pro- 
moted thereby. The England which would make war to 



THEIR RELATIONS TO THE WORLD, ETC. 495 

defend a religious principle we may wen fear is gone for- 
ever. The England of to-day is paralyzed by the spell of 
France, and chilled by Mammon selfishness. These are the 
two great powers which now present themselves on the 
theater of nations as the special antagonists of Russia and 
America, the champions of political and ecclesiastical des- 
potism, massing their banded strength against Russia and 
the Greek Church on the one hand, against this Protest- 
ant American Republic on the other. 

It is perfectly evident, therefore, that, as Europe now 
stands, the only hope for her of arresting or resisting this 
new combination which France is forming — and of which 
England is almost certain to become a part, unless pre- 
vented by popular revolution — must rest on Russia. 

The Protestant portion of Germany is in a state of 
chaos : we may hope that it may yet be organized and find 
a fitting leader, raised up as Luther was of God ; but, as 
things now are, Russia alone has power, if any thing 
human has, to save the people of Europe from this new 
conspiracy against civil and religious freedom. 

Russia has committed herself openly, fully, deliberately, 
to the cause of popular progress. Her new policy in free- 
ing, elevating, and educating her people, and in making 
the laborers landowners, is very far in advance of any 
thing done or proposed by England or France. Her theory 
is not a democratic one, but it is, that the government 
should be administered so as to promote the highest wel- 
fare of the people, instead of using the people as machines 
or plantation slaves, merely to add to the pomp and 
splendor of an empire or an aristocracy. 

Strange as it may at first thought appear, it is never- 
theless true, that Russia is the true point of support for 
liberal opinions or popular progress in Europe. She, in 
the Greek Church, can present to Europe and the East a 
religious organization powerful enough to compete with 
the Papacy; and that Church has a spiritual life, a liber- 
ality, a spirit of toleration, of which the Church of Rome 
knows nothing. The cordial friendship between Russia 



496 ENGLAND, FRANCE, RUSSIA AND AMERICA : 

and America will incline the national Church to affiliate 
hereafter with at least our American form of Protestant- 
ism, and the Protestant faith may, in its coming struggle 
with Rome, find that support in Russia which England, 
entangled as she is, and largely Catholic as she is already, 
may be unable or unwilling to give. 

Russia alone has the military and naval strength to 
resist the attack of France and her allies. The battle of 
our iron-clads effected for Russia precisely what it did for 
us. It delivered her from the fear of the great navies of 
France and England. Thanks to the genius of Ericsson, 
and our American artillery, Russia can construct mail-clad 
batteries that no ocean-going ship can resist. She has a 
fleet of these already, and she can defy the utmost effort 
of France and England combined, and her late reply to 
France, on the Polish question, is proof that she knows 
her strength. 

She alone of all Europe can give freedom to the down- 
trodden East; she alone can re-establish on the historic 
plains of the old Greek Empire a nation with popular 
rights and religious freedom ; and mankind will have 
reason to rejoice when the national banner of the Greek 
Church shall take the place of the Crescent on the towers 
of St. Sophia. Who can foresee the changes which will 
be wrought in Europe, and especially upon all the branches 
of the Sclavonic race, now that the imperial and religious 
head of that race has planted himself on the side of the 
people, the advocate and defender of popular progress. 
There are many who are deeply prejudiced against Russia 
because of her course in Poland ; but even there, when she 
is fully understood, she will be justified, at least in her 
general course, by even the friends of freedom. First, the 
insurrection in Poland was a rebellion of the nobility, and 
not of the people; it was, like our own rebellion, an at- 
tempt of the aristocracy to secure and extend their power 
over the laboring classes. Second, it is now asserted, by 
good authority, that this outbreak received its inspiration 
from Paris, and was an attempt, on the part of Louis 



THEIR RELATIONS TO THE WORLD, ETC. 497 

Napoleon and his Jesuits, to obtain a foothold within the 
Russian dominions, from whence Russia and the Greek 
Church might be attacked when the opportunity should 
offer. It was a covert attempt to flank Russia by a French 
Catholic outpost, as he is flanking the United States by 
the occupation of Mexico. 

The Russian Minister did not hesitate to inform the 
French Emperor that the Polish insurrection was fomented 
in his own capital ; and Russia knew, and America ought 
to know, that she was called to meet, in Poland, not an 
uprising of the people, but an insidious effort of France and 
the Catholic leaders to wrest from her a portion of her do- 
minions, and strike a blow also at her national Church. 

Russia is now the grandest spectacle in the old world. 
She stands the center of a hundred millions of people, and 
head of that Church which for a thousand years had its 
chief seat at Constantinople, and made it the second city 
of the East ; and while France and the Latin nations and 
the Papacy are together preparing to create an over- 
whelming despotism, and England seems caught in the 
toils of the conspiracy, Russia confronts them with her 
gigantic power and nobler aspirations, and, standing in 
that light of freedom with which she is scattering her own 
darkness away, she turns to a new era and a nobler life. 

Russia has professedly undertaken an experiment which 
has not been tried since the time of the Jewish theocracy. 
She declares that she will use the powers of the govern- 
ment and the influence of a national Church to instruct, 
to elevate, to enrich, and bless the masses of the people. 
The Czar assumes the position of Father and Priest of his 
people, and proposes to govern for their benefit; and there- 
fore he invests them all with the proper rights of citizen- 
ship, and offers to aid them in every effort at improvement 
by the advice and influence and treasure of the government 
itself. Doubtless there w T ill be many mistakes and short- 
comings in the carrying out of this plan, but it is the 
noblest announcement of the true Christian theory of gov- 
ernment which Europe has heard in modern times. 

32 



498 ENGLAND, FRANCE, RUSSIA, AND AMERICA : 

In all ages, and everywhere except in Judea and here, 
the people have been used to aggrandize the monarch, the 
nobility, and the Church. Russia proposes now to reverse 
this, and use both Church and State power to ennoble and 
bless the people at large. 

The progress of her experiment will be watched with 
intense interest by every friend of the Gospel and of hu- 
man progress. She presents at all points an illustrious 
antagonism to the movement which now controls all 
Western Europe. 

She has cut herself loose from the traditions and policy 
of the past, and proposes henceforth to act upon the prin- 
ciple that governments are instituted for the good of the 
citizens. This new policy has brought Russia, so far as 
general purpose is concerned, into close sympathy with 
the United States, as no other European power can be until 
Germany is reconstructed, and God sends her a leader. 

The national purpose in this Republic, also, is to use 
the powers of the State and of religion to promote the 
welfare of the people, to spread intelligence among the 
laboring masses, and to multiply their comforts. 

In our republican State we propose to accomplish this 
object by civil institutions created by and dependent upon 
the people themselves, and by Churches having no con- 
nection with the State, receiving from it no support of any 
kind, being merely voluntary religious associations, depend- 
ing for support upon the free-will offerings of the people. 
This is the American form of Christian civilization, while 
Russia proposes to attain the same end by a government 
both patriarchal and kingly in its character, while at the 
same time the Church is an integral part of the State and 
the Czar is its imperial head. 

These two forms of government, so different and yet 
aiming at the same result, present the two great experi- 
ments of modern times for the elevation of the working 
masses of the nation, and it remains to be seen which will 
achieve the most signal success. The tendency of the one 
will, of course, be toward despotism and oppression of tho 



THEIR RELATIONS TO THE WORLD, ETC. 499 

people, such as characterizes every other monarchy; that 
of our free government is toward lawlessness, an undue 
assertion of individual right, or, in times of great peril 
like the present, toward a military despotism ; but if these 
two experiments in popular progress are faithfully carried 
out, they will help to settle the great problem of Christian 
civilization, whether a strong central government and a 
national Church, faithfully administered for the good of 
the citizens, will promote the general welfare and secure 
the general progress equally with those democratic forms, 
both in the State and the Church, which have been adopted 
here. However this may be, Russia and America now 
stand before the world as the leaders of the two great 
forms of popular progress, and both are confronted and 
threatened by the civil and ecclesiastical despotisms of 
"Western Europe. Their interests are identical, their fields 
of action so remote from each other as to render unlikely 
any future collision, their enemies are the same, and it is 
not improbable that they may yet unite to free themselves 
and the nations, on land and on the sea, from the arro- 
gant assumptions of France, England, and the Papacy. 



500 THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 



CHAPTER XXXIX. 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 

The subjects treated of in the preceding chapters lead 
naturally to the consideration of what is called " The 
Monroe Doctrine," and to inquire whether that announce- 
ment of the American government was intended only to 
serve an occasion, or whether that declaration sets forth a 
policy upon which our national safety, and even our exist- 
ence as a Republic, depends. 

It is necessary to the full understanding of this matter, 
that one should consider the causes which induced our 
government thus to declare its intentions. 

The history of Europe presents many examples of com- 
binations among different nations to repress the growing 
power or ambition of some monarch or kingdom that 
threatened the peace or liberty of the rest, but no regular 
system for such a purpose was formed and agreed upon 
until the Congress of Vienna. The career of Napoleon 
had shown Europe the necessity of some kind of union 
among the powers for mutual protection against any fu- 
ture Bonaparte that might arise ; and after his overthrow 
and at the Congress of Vienna, the so-called Holy Alli- 
ance was formed, by which Europe was placed under the 
joint supervision and control of live " Great Powers," 
Great Britain, France, Austria, Russia, and Prussia. By 
the decisions of these the nations were to be bound. They 
constituted themselves the guardians and trustees of 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 501 

Europe, and had, of course, ample power to enforce their 
opinions upon all the rest. 

Moreover, any three of these, or any two, if Great Brit- 
ain or France were one, could act in any case for the 
whole. England, for private reasons, did not become, in 
form, a party to this arrangement, but she shared in all 
the negotiations of the Congress, approved of the system 
as adopted, and has ever maintained and relied upon it 
since — a cordial, active partner of the Alliance, though 
without signing her name to the paper. These self-consti- 
tuted guardians of Europe assumed the right to interfere 
with the concerns of any State whose government or policy 
did not please them, and compel it, by force of arms, if 
necessary, to shape all its concerns according to their 
judgment of the case. They were the European Supreme 
Court of Nations, and their armies and their navies were 
always ready to execute their decrees. 

A cardinal principle of these kingly custodians of Eu- 
rope was, to maintain everywhere, so far as possible, one 
only form of government, an absolute monarchy, heredit- 
ary, and supported by due military power. If a constitu- 
tional government were already in existence, strong enough 
to resist, such as England was, it was to be endured while 
it must be ; but it was a primal object with these Holy 
Allies to repress and put down everywhere all popular 
institutions and power, to deny entirely any right in the 
people to choose their own rulers, or to frame their own 
laws and institutions. It was a part of the contract be- 
tween these five powers to establish and support, wherever 
they had the power, a form of government directly opposed, 
both in essential principles and in every form and feature, 
to the free institutions of our own Republic. They were 
bound to put us down whenever the occasion should offer, 
and the intervening ocean alone has saved us from inter- 
vention and destruction while we were yet in our infancy. 

But the absolute rulers of Western Europe and the 
Jesuits have never ceased to hope that this Republic 
might yet be destroyed. Many have been the schemes to 



502 THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 

render us subservient to their designs before the use of 
steam on the sea had brought us within the reach of their 
arms. The first Napoleon sold us Louisiana in order that 
we might become a maritime rival of England. Subse- 
quently, England, under Canning, approved of our Monroe 
Doctrine, in order to exclude France from the American 
continent, and now England unites with France, both to 
occupy Mexico and destroy the Republic, in the very spirit 
of the Holy Alliance, and because she wishes to crush a 
rival. Bonaparte overthrew the government of Spain, and 
her American colonies, freed from her yoke, declared their 
independence. There Ivas also a popular movement in 
Spain, and the Cortez demanded a constitution for the 
people. The Holy Alliance interfered, put down the popu- 
lar party, and restored absolute authority to Ferdinand. 
The independence which the South American States had 
just declared, then received the attention of the Allies, and 
a scheme was formed, first for reconquering South Amer- 
ica for Spain, and then to determine whether any thing 
could be devised for checking the young Republic of the 
North. This was the time selected by Mr. Monroe to 
announce the policy which stands connected with his name 
as the " Monroe Doctrine." This doctrine was presented 
in his message of December, 1823, in the following words : 

" In the wars of the European powers, in matters relat- 
ing to themselves, we have never taken any part, nor does 
it comport with our policy so to do. It is only when our 
rights are invaded, or seriously menaced, that we resent 
injuries, or make preparations for our defense. "With the 
movements in this hemisphere we are of necessity more 
immediately connected, and by causes which must be ob- 
vious to all enlightened and impartial observers. The 
political system of the Allied Powers is essentially differ- 
ent in this respect from that of America. This difference 
proceeds from that which exists in their respective gov- 
ernments. And to the defense of our own, which has 
been achieved with so much expense of blood and treasure, 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 503 

and matured by the wisdom of their most enlightened citi- 
zens, and under which we have enjoyed most unexampled 
felicity, this whole nation is devoted. "We owe it, there- 
fore, to candor and to the amicable relations subsisting 
between the United States and these powers, to declare, 
that we should consider any attempt on their part to ex- 
tend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as 
dangerous to our peace and safety. With the existing 
colonies or dependencies of any European power we have 
not interfered, and shall not interfere. But with the gov- 
ernments who have declared their independence, and main- 
tained it, and whose independence we have, on great 
consideration, and on just principles, acknowledged, we 
could not view any interposition, for the purposes of op- 
pressing them, or controlling in any other manner their 
destiny, by any European power, in any other light than 
as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward 
the United States. In the war between these governments 
and Spain, we declared our neutrality at the time of their 
recognition, and to this we have adhered, and shall con- 
tinue to adhere, provided no change shall occur which, in 
the judgment of the competent authorities of this govern- 
ment, shall make a corresponding change on the part of 
the United States indispensable to their security." 

" The deep interest which we take in their independence, 
which we have acknowledged, and in their enjoyment of 
all the rights incident thereto, especially in the very im- 
portant one of instituting their own governments, has been 
declared, and is known to the world. Separated as we 
are from Europe by the great Atlantic Ocean, we can have 
no concern in the wars of the European governments, nor 
in the causes which produce them. The balance of power 
between them, into whichever scale it may turn in its various 
vibrations, can not affect us. It is the interest of the United 
States to preserve the most friendly relations with every 
power, and on conditions fair, equal, and applicable to all. 
But in regard to our neighbors our situation is different. 



504 THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 

It is impossible for the European governments to interfere 
in their concerns, especially in those alluded to," — [of 
instituting their own governments] — " which are vital, without 
affecting us; indeed, the motive which might induce such 
interference in the present state of the war between the 
parties, if war it may be called, would appear to be equally 
applicable to us. It is gratifying to know that some of the 
powers with whom we enjoy a very friendly intercourse, 
and to whom these views have been communicated, have 
appeared to acquiesce in them." — Message of Dec. 7, 1824. 

These messages, as well as the general political history 
of that time, show in the clearest light the character and 
designs of that European movement against which the 
protest was directed. Its avowed object was to bring the 
American continent under the control of the allied mon- 
archs of Europe, to trample out all popular rights, put 
down all popular governments, and restore the reign of 
absolutism over all this Western world. 

Mr. Monroe and his associate statesmen knew well that 
the coming blow was to be aimed at the very life of this 
Republic, and, indeed, at republican institutions on both 
the American continents, and with a courage, boldness, and 
firmness which might have been profitably imitated in our 
later dealings with Europe, and especially with France, 
they declared that they were resolved to resist all attempts 
to impose the European system upon part of America, and, 
if necessary, they would do this by force of arms. 

A writer in the New Englander for October, 1863, in a 
very clear and able article upon " The Monroe Doctrine," 
thus sums up its principles: 

" 1. That the American continents, (leaving out the isl- 
ands), are henceforth not to be considered subject to any 
future colonization by any European nation. 

" 2. That we shall consider any attempt on the part of 
the European powers to extend their political system to 
any portion of this hemisphere as ' dangerous to our 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 505 

peace .and safety,' and of course to be counteracted or 
provided against as we shall deem advisable in any case. 

" 3. That for any European power to interfere with any 
American government for the purpose of oppressing or 
dictating to them unjustly, or of controlling their destiny 
b} T force or threats, would be viewed by us as ' the mani- 
festation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United 
States,' which we should be called upon to notice by pro- 
test or remonstrance, or in such way as we should think 
our honor and interest required." 

In this conspiracy against free institutions on this con- 
tinent, Russia was then engaged, as earnestly engaged as 
the rest, having offered to assist Ferdinand in recovering 
his colonies ; but Russia, under Alexander and under Nich- 
olas, was not the liberal Russia which she is to-day. The 
whole aspect of Europe has changed ; the Crimean war 
taught her that her deadliest foes were among the Allied 
Powers ; she saw clearly that her true interests are quite 
independent of absolutism and of Western Europe ; that 
her aims are identical with those of the Western Republic, 
and that the enemies of America are equally her own. 
The Papacy strikes alike at Protestantism and the Greek 
Church, and those who hate and fear our free America are 
equally hostile to a liberal Russia, throbbing and expand- 
ing with a new popular life. 

France and England, when they had resolved, for pur- 
poses of their own, to make an attack on Russia, gave to 
their plan, at first, the aspect of a joint movement of four 
of the great regulators of Europe, to check the ambition 
of one of their own associates in the Holy Alliance; but, 
bo soon as they saw that they could not thus produce a 
war, they abandoned Austria and Prussia, and made the 
attack alone, for reasons which have been presented in the 
previous chapters of this work ; and now these same pow- 
ers, in connection with Spain, have undertaken anew the 
very scheme against which Mr. Monroe, supported by 
the whole country, protested so earnestly and firmly in 



506 THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 

1823, and by their manly courage averted, for a time, the 
danger. 

When this Southern conspiracy first disclosed itself in 
Europe, it was carefully nourished and strengthened; and 
when the outbreak of the rebellion gave the occasion, 
every crowned and titled foe of popular rights prepared 
for what they believed would be the final overthrow of 
free institutions, and the restoration of the Western conti- 
nent to European control, England taking the grand in- 
itiatory step, which made all the rest easy, by recognizing 
the traitors as lawful belligerents and on an equality with 
the regular government. 

As has been already stated, commercial ambition on the 
part of England, the purpose so coolly selfish of crippling 
her American rival, and with France a desire to aggrand- 
ize the Papacy and the Latin races, enter largely into this 
new attempt to subjugate America, and these greatly in- 
crease our danger. This rebellion, of itself, could not have 
lived through a twelvemonth unaided from abroad, and 
this its leaders have confessed ; and it has been cherished 
and aided by France and England, simply as their instru- 
ment to carry out their own designs. Through the Con- 
federates, England and France cunningly wage a secure 
war upon the United States, the arms, powder, supplies 
of all sorts, being furnished to the traitors with as much 
good-will as if they were for their own armies, and the 
traitor ships are sent forth as if they belonged to their 
own navies; and, to crown all, France seizes Mexico 
as a point of support for the Confederacy, and as a spot 
to which can be rallied every foe of the United States, 
for an assault upon us whenever the favorable hour shall 
come. 

The secessionists in Europe are already rallying to the 
support of that tool of France and the Pope, called the 
Emperor of Mexico, and receiving titles of nobility at his 
hands, and the fearful, cautious steps by which this war 
has been prolonged, and the want of any firm remon- 
strances to the course of France, have brought us at this 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 507 

time (March, 1864) within a step of the position where the 
Southern rebels will be supported by a consolidated gov- 
ernment in Mexico, backed by the sympathies and the 
arms of France. 

A policy which has nothing positive, which lacks every 
element of courage and boldness, which commits itself to 
the drift of circumstances, has brought the nation face to 
face with this deadly peril, and it now remains to be seen 
whether the American people will rouse themselves in 
season and demand from our rulers the swift crushing of 
our home-traitors by the energetic use of every war-power, 
by treating them as traitors in justice to the loyal, and 
then reassert the principles set forth by Mr. Monroe, in 
the same spirit of comprehensive statesmanship and calm 
courage with which they were asserted at first. 

The country has not now one moment to lose. This 
Congress should annihilate slavery; the rebellion should 
be crushed by our blows in the spring and early summer, 
if there is force enough in the whole North to do it ; the 
property of the South, real and personal, should be placed 
forever beyond the reach of a traitor; and, at the same 
time, let the proper admonition be given to Maximilian, 
France, and Europe. 

Thus only, as is believed, can our Republic be saved, and 
all America be secured against European control, and pre- 
served as the grand theater for the expanding life of free 
institutions. 

Let Maximilian once be established firmly on our bor- 
der, and when we have broken the armies of the South, 
the chief conspirators, with all whom they can influence, 
will rally in Mexico to renew the war. 

The manner and spirit with which Louis Napoleon en- 
tered Mexico are well set forth by the writer in the New 
Englander, already referred to, Rev. Dr. Joshua Leavitt 
He says : 



"Our government is generally regarded in Europe as a 
mere aggregation cf individuals, to and from which men 



508 THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 

may come and go at pleasure, without incurring any moral 
obligation or violating any moral principle. 

" It is upon this ground that we are to explain what 
appeared to Americans so shameless in the conduct of the 
French Emperor, when, in his letter to General Forey, he 
directed him to treat any government he might find in 
Mexico as merely provisional. The government of Presi- 
dent Juarez is unquestionably the constitutional govern- 
ment of Mexico, and it has been supported by the great 
body of the people as such — the malcontent priests and 
their followers, and a few factious chiefs, only excepted. 
But it originated solely in the voice of the people, and 
neither had nor asked any other sanction than the popular 
will ; and, therefore, Europe pronounces it only provisional, 
and hence liable to be replaced by another of equal au- 
thority by any faction which could get possession of the 
capital, so as to wield for a moment the forms of govern- 
ment at the accustomed seat of government. Another 
point gained by this subtilty is to give color to the pre- 
text by which Mexico is held to be bound by the acts of 
the transient usurper, Miramon ; for if Juarez's government 
is only provisional, Miramon's had as much authority as 
his. And, on no better ground than this, the Three Great 
Powers, Great Britain, France, and Spain, formed a coa- 
lition to invade Mexico, just as it was recovering from the 
disorders of a long revolution, in order to coerce the pay- 
ment of Miramon's bonds, for which the scoundrel bankers 
had paid the plundering brigand only at the rate of four 
or five cents on the dollar. And, by the same rule, if Jeff. 
Davis had been smart enough to seize Washington City in 
1861, and inaugurate himself as President of the United 
States, they might by and by be making war against us 
to compel the payment of his loans, for his government 
would have been provisional, and Europe decides in the 
r,ase of Mexico that a constitutional government, sanc- 
tioned alone by the will of the people, is ' only provis- 
ional.' 

"If there had been any doubt as to the real intent of 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 509 

the language employed in the diplomatic correspondence 
of the Allied Powers and in the Emperor's letter, it is 
all now dispelled by the action of the French commander 
since he got possession of the city of Mexico. He knew 
the object of the expedition, and what his master meant 
by his orders. He has treated the constitutional govern- 
ment of Mexico as no valid government, as a merely pro- 
visional arrangement, a locum tenens, until military power 
could come in and grant to the people a government con- 
formed to the fundamental ideas of Europe. He first 
appoints, by his own authority, a commission of three 
persons, one a renegade Mexican, the instigator of the 
invasion, Almonte ; the second, the Archbishop, a servant 
of the sovereign of Rome, to give the sanction of the 
Pope to the proceeding ; the third, Salas, the most unprin- 
cipled of all the chiefs who have aided to keep Mexico in 
a turmoil for a generation. These three convene a Council 
of Notables, selected by themselves, who proceed at once 
to declare Mexico an Empire, and designate the Archduke 
Maximilian, of Austria, for Emperor, with the provision 
that, if he declines, the. Emperor of France shall designate 
a person to be their monarch. Here we have the true 
intent of the ambiguous phraseology which was used 
throughout by the Allied Powers, of their intention to 
secure to unfortunate Mexico the blessings of a stable 
government. They meant a frame of government not 
originating with the people in the exercise of their own 
inherent rights, and which they were always at liberty to 
change for good cause, but one granted to the people by 
some authority above them. It is a legitimate outgo of 
the political system of Europe, as adjusted by the Congress 
of Vienna." 

The invasion of Mexico was made under the merest 
shadow of a pretext, a vail so thin as not to cover one 
feature of its real purpose from any discerning eye. To 
enforce the payment of Miramon's worthless bonds was a 
monstrous atrocity; but to make this a pretense under 



510 THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 

which to subjugate a whole country, overthrow its institu- 
tions, and impose upon it, by force of arms, a foreign des- 
pot, is a still deeper crime against God and humanity. 
Americans will make a very perilous mistake if they fail 
to regard this armed occupation of a sister Republic as 
any thing less than one important part of the scheme for 
the hoped-for subjugation of the United States. The inva- 
sion of Mexico and the rebellion are the two grand feat- 
ures of this French and English plot ; and, while England 
has devoted her energies more particularly to protecting 
and aiding our home-conspirators, France has been equally 
busy with her allotted share in the attempt to dismember 
the Republic, and reconquer America. It is a blow at our 
national life, and in defense of that life we are bound to 
use all honorable means which may be at our disposal. It 
is aimed by the monarchies of "Western Europe against 
free institutions on this continent; it is aimed by the Pa- 
pacy against our Protestant faith ; it is aimed at our com- 
merce with Asia through excluding us from the Isthmus 
and Central America, and with the ultimate intention of 
wresting from us our possessions on the Pacific, and our 
whole mineral territory, which Louis Napoleon has sur- 
veyed and mapped out already. So far back as 1847, the 
French Emperor unfolded his plan for the occupation of 
the Isthmus of Panama and Central America, and for a 
ship-canal between the oceans, for the purpose of planting 
a European power in the center of the continent to check 
our southward progress and control the American route to 
India. England, having changed her views since the time 
of Canning, and fearing the rapid growth of the Republic, 
adopted his, and hence her operations in Central America, 
and also her approval of the attack on Mexico. Whatever 
may be the external aspect or attitude of these two pow- 
ers, their purposes remain unchanged; they are perfectly 
agreed as to their American policy, and, until the relations 
of Europe are materially changed, we can count with 
certainty upon their covert or open hostility. To permit 
France, under such circumstances, to obtain a firm foot- 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 5U 

hold on our Southern border, would be nothing less than 
national suicide. 

In warning Americans against the establishment or the 
strengthening of the Papal power on this continent, one 
explanation should be made. ISTo true American will ob- 
ject to a Church of the Catholic form in this country — a 
Church which should be one among others, one of the 
religious denominations merely, and on a level with the 
rest. With the religious belief of any man, or with his 
mode of worship, Americans propose not to interfere. But 
it is quite another thing to stretch over this continent, and 
over this Republic, the power of that politico-ecclesiastical 
despotism called the Papacy, of which Louis Napoleon is 
one head and the Pope the other — of which the Jesuits 
are the inspiring soul, and French and other Latin armies 
and navies are to be the executive powers. Could Europe 
and America, as France and the Jesuits design, be brought 
under the control of the Papacy again, it would bring 
upon the world a more fearful despotism, a bitterer curse 
than it felt under Hildebrand and the Innocents. Let 
Americans consider this subject in its relations to our 
Pacific States, and our commerce with Asia. The Isthmus 
will soon be the great transit-point over which the Asiatic 
trade of the Americas and a part of Europe must go, and 
every rule of national safety demands that this route 
should be under the control of an American power. 

With Mexico, Central America, and Cuba permanently 
in the hands of European powers, they could doom us to 
a second-rate position in spite of our every effort. They 
could control, to suit themselves, the commerce of the 
world, and absorb its wealth. Besides, the nations of 
Europe have their own home-routes to Asia. 

France is preparing, in union with England, to cross 
Suez with the ship-canal now nearly finished. Russia is 
extending her lines from the Black Sea, by the Caspian 
and the Aral, while she also proposes to divert a part of 
the trade of Asia up the Amoor, and cross the continent 
by railroad and water to Moscow. Surely, then, this 



512 THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 

American route belongs to Americans ; and to permit any 
European power to hold our own keys of Asia would be tc 
sink from the position of a power among nations. 

Let England and France confine themselves within their 
appropriate limits, and then, in the natural course of 
events, by peaceful growth and fair contract, we shall ob- 
tain, in due time, whatever we require. Their officious, 
arrogant, and hostile interference will not be endured, 
unless we are either blind to our most important interests 
or have lost the spirit of our fathers. 

The sun is not more certain to rise than that France, in 
possession of Mexico and Central America, would, with 
the help of England, exclude us from the routes of the 
Isthmus, and this would first destroy our participation in 
the commerce of the East, and then, with the Pacific 
ports of Mexico and Central America in the hands of a 
hostile power, what could save California, connected with 
us only by the Cape or two thousand miles of railway? 
Viewed from any point, the movement of France involves 
the question of life or death for this Republic. 

Let us thank God that just in the hour of our need and 
peril he has provided for us the means of defense. Before 
the war we should have seen no method by which such an 
attack as Europe now threatens could have been resisted, 
in the face of their overwhelming navies. They could 
have sealed up our whole coast, burned our cities, and 
landed any number of troops safely under cover of their 
fleets. 

But the revolution which we have wrought in naval 
warfare, by our Monitors and improved artillery, has 
changed all this. Our harbors can not now be entered, 
our cities can not be burned, no fleet can maintain its po- 
sition here for the landing of troops, or for blockading our 
coast. No vessels that can cross the ocean can withstand 
batteries and ships that we can prepare for home defense, 
and these ships on the coast of Mexico, and such an army 
as we can easily place there, would soon solve the ques- 
tion of European occupation; and then, when Europe 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 513 

has been taught that these Americas are the rightful and 
exclusive domain of Americans, the theater for an Ameri- 
can civilization, which will brook no foreign dictation, 
the United States, as the leader of a grand alliance of 
American States, may present to all nations the type and 
model of a Christian Republic, while Russia, let us hope, 
will exhibit to Europe and the East, a Christian monarchy 
and a national Church administered so as to bless, instruct, 
and elevate the people. 

If so, America and Russia will be the two great powers 
of the future. 

33 



514 CONCLUSION. 



CHAPTER XL. 

CONCLUSION. 

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE ERA UPON WHICH WE ARE ENTERING : THE ERA 
OF POPULAR POWER AND POPULAR PROGRESS— THE FORCES WHICH WORK 
IN HARMONY WITH THE SPIRIT OF THE NEW AGE— THE POWERS THAT 
STILL CLING TO AND STRIVE TO RETAIN AND STRENGTHEN THE DESPOT- 
ISMS WHICH ARE PASSING AWAY— PROBABLE RESULTS. 

Although the whole movement of society may he re- 
garded as a progress from a definite starting point toward 
a definite end, yet this movement is so marked off into 
divisions, stages in the grand march, that we are able to 
see where one great system ends and another begins. 
There is hardly ro.om for doubt that the nations are just 
now standing at the close of a political era, just at the 
beginning of one of those revolutions in which old insti- 
tutions, having lived beyond their time, either silently 
crumble or are shattered by violence and swept away, and 
the world enters upon the life of a new age; and the spirit 
of that age embodies itself in new forms of social, polit- 
ical, and perhaps religious life. 

At such periods the powers which have ruled the world 
through an age, and which have controlled and divided 
among them its authority, its honors, and emoluments, 
struggle desperately to maintain their position. The wealth, 
the power, the rank, the religious institutions, in short the 
external forces of society, are at first all at their disposal, 
and these for a time are used to force back the coming 
age, to trample out the light of new truth, to perpetuate 
the old abuses, and retain the vanishing past. 



CONCLUSION. 515 

In such a struggle the era of the old military despotisms 
closed ; Rome, the last of these, fell and crumbled away, 
and the feudal system was built upon its ruins. Nation- 
alities then almost disappeared. The European popula- 
tions were a loosely joined conglomerate of baronial tribes 
nearly independent of each other, a structure of society 
which presented no basis on which to rear a civilization. 

This era was followed by what may be called the period 
of national consolidation ; the age in which the monarchies 
of modern Europe assumed their present forms, and the 
power of the crown swallowed up that of the great nobles, 
and the separated tribes — for they were little more — became 
a united nation, the population crystalized upon the throne. 
Thus was laid the foundation upon which modern civiliza- 
tion has been raised. This system is distinguished by the 
mingled despotism of capital and classes, the never-ending 
attempt to subject the laborers, nominally free, to the 
dependence, the degradation, the ignorance, and the pov- 
erty of slavery, without its name. 

The spirit of the Gospel, and especially since the Refor- 
mation, has exerted against this whole system a counter- 
working force, by separating the individual man, declaring 
his worth, setting forth and demanding his rights, instruct- 
ing and elevating him, until these monarchies and aristoc- 
racies no longer suit the spirit of the age. They belong to 
the past, their limit of life is nearly reached, and we are 
just about entering upon a new era, in which popular 
institutions must take the place of thrones, and despotism 
must give place to freedom. Here, and elsewhere, this is 
the meaning of the world's struggle, and Europe will 
probably be the theater of a conflict as fierce and desper- 
ate as that which is raging here ; but through this agony 
of nations, the era of the people will be born. 

Since the first chapters of this book were written, the 
decided progress which has been made in putting down 
the rebellion, and the character of our recent military 
operations in Virginia and Georgia, have produced a 
profound impression in Europe. Not only has it been 



516 CONCLUSION. 

rendered certain that our free institutions are to triumph 
over a slaveholding despotism, though so powerfully sus- 
tained by European sympathy and aid, but the powers of 
the old world are amazed at the strength and resources 
of our Republic, at the gigantic character of our military 
operations, and the courage, skill, and matchless endur- 
ance of our soldiers. 

Our bitterest enemies, who at first assailed us both with 
reproaches and sneers, are compelled to admit that all the 
previous history of war shows no parallel to this American 
fighting; and, much as they are disposed to lavish all 
their praise upon the armies of the South, they can not 
conceal the fact that the soldiers of the free RTorth are 
steadily pressing them back, and are showing on every 
battle-field a decided superiority. 

The ennobling power of freedom is manifested, also, in 
the delivered slaves. Touched by this transforming spell 
of liberty, they have risen, at a single step, from brute- 
hood to a manhood which compels our admiration. By 
common consent they are heroes ; respected by their fellow- 
soldiers and trusted by their commanders, they form a very 
important part of our national army even now, and it is 
easy to see that this enfranchised race will be invaluable 
in defending America from foreign aggression. 

These things have caused already a marked change in 
the sentiments of Europe, and a new impulse has been 
given to the hopes and the power of the people. The 
friends of liberal institutions, encouraged by our success, 
are devoting themselves with new energy to their work, 
and some among the ranks of power are, like Mr. Glad- 
stone, keen-sighted enough to discern the coming change, 
and are preparing themselves to be leaders in a revolution 
which they are convinced must come, either by sudden 
violence or peaceful reform. 

In England, France, Italy, Germany, Sweden, and Den- 
mark, the popular power is making swift progress, and our 
final success will be a signal for important movements, 



CONCLUSION. 517 

which may end in the overthrow of the present institu- 
tions of Western Europe. 

There is, however, little reason to hope that such a 
change can be speedily made, or without such bloody con- 
vulsions as usually occur at the close of an era — the earth- 
quakes that heave and shatter the foundations and the 
structures of society. Our own rebellion shows with what 
desperation privileged classes will defend their wealth 
wrung from unrequited labor, their social rank, and their 
political power; and the thrones and aristocracies, the 
rulers and owners of "Western Europe will, in like manner, 
fill their lands with all the horrors of modern war, sooner 
than yield to the just demands of the people. The spirit 
of the English aristocracy, in regard to the progress of 
popular freedom here, indicates the intensity of passion 
and hate with which they will oppose a similar movement 
at home ; and the leaders of the Papacy, dazzled with the 
new prospects which are opening before them through the 
policy of France, will be as eager for blood as they have 
been in the ages past. In Europe, moreover, the liberal 
movement will be made at a great disadvantage compared 
with our own. With us, in the North, the life and power 
of our great conflict are derived from the religious senti- 
ment of the country. It is supported by the cordial sym- 
pathies, the teachings and prayers, of the evangelical 
Churches; it receives its impulse from the faith of the 
people. 

But in Europe the popular revolution must proceed, 
for the most part, against the established Churches and 
the prevailing religious sentiment ; and, as in the former 
French revolution, the tendency will, almost from neces- 
sity, be not only against the present ecclesiastical despot- 
isms, but against Christianity itself. 

Here, as the old structures, social and political, pass 
away, the vigorous religious sentiment forms, speedily and 
safely, new ones that fit the spirit of the new era; but in 
Europe we have reason to fear that society may be reduced 



518 CONCLUSION. 

to chaos, thrones, aristocracies, and hierarchies crushed 
together, with no religious power to shape a new creation. 
Should this be so, then the example and united power of 
Russia and America may, under God, prove the salvation 
of the nations, presenting, as they will, two stable forma 
of government, both based upon and animated by the 
spirit of a true Christianity, and both using alike political 
and religious power to bless, instruct, and elevate the 
people. 

These two great powers will work in harmony with the 
spirit of the new age upon which we have entered, and, 
consequently, will be in alliance with each other; the 
one seeking the regeneration of the East, the other the 
helper and protector of these Western worlds. 

England clings, with as much desperation as the slave- 
holders here, to systems that are passing away, and 
dreams as vainly of binding the nations to her mills and 
workshops as they did of ruling the world by their cot- 
ton. Lord Palmerston, eighty years old, and struggling 
to force back the future, is a tit representative of the 
present England. Great Britain, as it would seem, is 
committed to a struggle against popular progress, and she 
must bide the issue. 

France is preparing to head the last onset of the Papacy 
against religious liberty and the civil rights of man. Satan 
is striving to rally the people of Europe under an anti- 
Christian banner, and thus it appears as if the elements of 
a world-wide battle were being prepared and arranged, 
and as if the shock could not be long delayed. In this 
coming conflict, it is clear that the general interests of 
Russia and America will be identical, whether they are 
formally allied or not ; and some of the results may, per- 
haps, be foreseen without any pretension to prophetic 
vision, or even uncommon intelligence. 

It is evident that the events of our war have essentially 
changed the relative power of the great nations. The 
naval supremacy of England and France is gone, to return 
no more. It is impossible for them, henceforth, to regain 



CONCLUSION. 519 

their former ascendency over the United States or Russia. 
Our own navy is, in efficiency for home defense, far more 
than the equal of that of England or France. Neither 
power can attack us with any reasonable hope of success, 
and the new American floating-battery and the new artil- 
lery have rendered Russia invulnerable. France and Eng- 
land are effectually shut out from her harbors and her 
territory. They are equally excluded from ours. 

Among the results of a general war, which seems inevit- 
able, are the occupation of Constantinople by Russia, and 
the expelling of every European power from this Western 
continent. England can scarcely escape being drawn into 
the wake of France, and sinking, in consequence, into a 
second-rate power, France, meanwhile, controlling the con- 
solidated Latin races and the Papal Church. What the 
ultimate result of this tripartite division of Christendom 
may be, can only be determined when the scroll of human 
destiny is somewhat more unrolled, and when the pro- 
phetic record shall become more clear. It is, however, 
settled already, that the two powers which have hitherto 
played a subordinate part in the world's affairs, will be the 
chief and most powerful actors in the new period now 
commencing, while it is also clear that Western Europe, 
under the lead of France, will be capable of waging a 
most formidable battle against Protestantism in the West 
and the Greek Church in the East. 

How the Protestant faith is to be defended in Europe, 
with France and the Papacy controlling all but Russia, 
does not now appear. No Protestant leader appears among 
the European nations in the visions of the future. The 
England, whose power was w T ielded by Cromwell in defense 
of religious freedom, and wdiose voice was heard through 
Milton, is gone. The England of to-day is too selfish, or 
too weak, to appear, any-where, the assertor or defender of 
the right. 

She follows France, copartner in a causeless, heartless 
attack on Russia; she proposes to tread down China, as 
she has done India; she escorts Louis Napoleon over the 



520 CONCLUSION. 

ocean to Mexico, and bids him God-speed in the moat 
criminal invasion of modern times ; she throws all her in- 
fluence in favor of the slaveholding rebels of our own 
country, and coolly leaves Denmark to her fate. 

Such a government, of course, is incapable of playing 
any great or noble part in the stormy future; and where 
the Protestants of Europe are to look for a leader, a cen- 
tral power around which to gather for organization and 
defense, none now can tell. If England, as she now is, 
could obtain the control of Europe, she would make of it 
one empire of Mammon, in which selfishness, unchecked 
by one great moral or religious principle, or one generous 
impulse, would shape all her policy. If she could succeed 
in what she aims at 'now, she would become one vast com- 
mercial despotism, the money tyrant of the earth, making 
spoil of all human industry to enrich her nobles and to 
make her merchants princes. Perhaps it would be better 
for the people to be ruled by the Papacy, than to be 
ground up as England's laborers are, even now, in the mills 
of Mammon. The hope of our own country is in holding 
firmly to the faith of our fathers in endeavoring to make, 
by the blessing of God, a true Christian faith the life of 
our national institutions. Even while these closing pages 
were being written another grand step has been taken in 
our progress toward Christian freedom, another glorious 
triumph has been won for the right in the repeal of the 
" Fugitive-slave Law," and God and man have both been 
honored. "We are taking no backward step. Every month 
we commend ourselves more and more strongly to the 
people of Europe. 

Let Americans hope and pray, and add earnest labor to 
the prayer, that our afflicted land, more dear to us now 
than ever, because of this sorrowful baptism of blood and 
tears, may present herself, in the new era, a new-born 
Christian power, consecrated to Christ and Christian free- 
dom, an instrument chosen by our Lord for the elevation 
of our whole humanity. 



9$ 1948 



